Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Private Bills [Lords] (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:

Preston Corporation Bill [Lords].

Bill to be read a Second time.

Private Bills (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bill, referred on the Second Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:

London and North Eastern Railway Bill.

Bill committed.

Provisional Order Bills (Standing Orders applicable thereto complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (East Elloe Joint Water Supply District) Bill.

Bill to be read a Second time Tomorrow.

Birmingham Canal Bill,

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

West Ham Corporation Bill (By Order),

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

SUPREME COURT (PRIZE, ETC.) DEPOSIT ACCOUNT, 1929–30.

Account ordered,
of the Receipts and Payments of the Accounting Officer of the Vote for the Supreme Court on behalf of the Admiralty Division in Prize for the year ended the 31st day of March, 1930, and for the period 4th day of August, 1914, to 31st day of March, 1930, together with Copies of the Correspondence with the Comptroller and Auditor-General and the Accounting Officer thereon."—[Mr. Pethick-Lawrence.]

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

MINES DEPARTMENT.

Mr. PHILIP OLIVER: 1.
asked the Secretary for Mines if he will give details of the staff of his Department during the first week in March in 1930 and 1931, respectively; and what additions to his staff have been necessitated by the Coal Mines Act, 1930?

The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Shinwell): As the answer involves a rather long statement containing a number of figures, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

With the hon. Member's permission, I propose to refer, as a matter of convenience, to the dates 1st April, 1930, and 1st April, 1931.

The hon. Member will find all the information he requires as regards details of the staff of the Mines Department on 1st April, 1930, in the Estimates for that year (Class VI, No. 6).

Provision is made in the Estimates for 1931, which I understand will be published on the 14th March, as follows:

The staff of the Mines Department itself shows an increase of 15, 12 of whom
are required for additional work resulting from the Coal Mines Act, 1930, and three to meet other increases of work in the Department.

For the Reorganisation Commission, the cost of which will be borne on the Mines Department Vote, provision is made as follows.

1 Chairman.
4 Commissioners.
16 members of the staff seconded from the Mines Department.
5 other staff.

The following provision is made for the Committees of Investigation:

6 Secretaries of Committees.

12 other staff.

CUSTOMS AND EXCISE DEPARTMENT (MOTOR CARS).

Major BEAUMONT THOMAS: 48.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many foreign motor vehicles and how many British motor vehicles are in use by the Department of His Majesty's Customs and Excise; and whether any foreign motor vehicles are on order at the present time?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence): The Customs and Excise Department use five motor vehicles, three of British manufacture belonging to His Majesty's Stationery Office, and two which are provided on hire by an outside contractor and as to the nature of which I have no particulars. I may mention that in Northern Ireland 15 cars, all of British manufacture, are used by members of the police force of that country who are engaged on Customs patrol work. The reply to the last part of the question is in the negative.

Captain Sir WILLIAM BRASS: Does the hon. Member not think that the Department might take the trouble to find out what those cars are?

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: May I ask whether it is usual in hiring vehicles to specify that they shall be of British manufacture?

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I cannot answer that question without notice.

TRADE UNIONS (CERTIFICATES OF APPROVAL).

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 49.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many unions of civil servants have been granted certificates of approval under Section 5 of the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act, 1927?

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: Two hundred and seventy-five.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

OIL EXTRACTION.

Mr. GORDON MACDONALD: 2.
asked the Secretary for Mines what action has been taken, or is likely to be taken, by the Government in order to encourage the making of oil from British coal in this country?

Mr. SHINWELL: For some years past the Government have spent a considerable sum of money each year on research work at the Fuel Research Station in connection with low-temperature carbonisation and hydrogenation of coal and coal tar oils, and full information in regard to this work is contained in the report of the Fuel Research Board issued quite recently. Tests have been and are being carried out by the Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry on fuels produced in this country from coal. I am again considering whether there is anything further that the Government might usefully do in order to expedite the development of these processes.

Mr. MACDONALD: 3.
asked the Secretary for Mines the quantity of British coal used in this country in the process of extracting oil during each of the last three years ended 31st December, 1930?

Mr. SHINWELL: At present no plant is being operated in this country on a commercial basis primarily for the extraction of oil from coal. Coal tar and coal tar oils are obtained as by-products in the carbonisation of coal at gas works, by-product coke ovens and low-temperature carbonisation works. In addition, benzol is obtained from the gas produced at a large number of these works, and smaller quantities in the process of distilling the tar. I gave such information as is available of the quantity of coal carbonised at these works in reply
to a question asked on the 3rd March by my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Rosbotham). I will send a copy of this answer to my hon. Friend.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Does my hon. Friend's answer include the oil extracted from Scottish shales?

Mr. SHINWELL: No; I think it refers to coal exclusively.

WAGES.

Mr. TINKER: 4.
asked the Secretary for Mines the average daily wage paid in the mining industry in 1920 and the average daily wage paid up to the latest period available?

Mr. SHINWELL: The average cash earnings per man-shift of all workers employed in the coal mines in Great Britain during 1920 was 16s. 10¼d., and during 1930, 9s. 3½d. These figures are exclusive of allowances in kind, as this information is not available for the year 1920. The average value of the allowances in kind during the first nine months of 1930 was about 4¾d. per shift.

MINE TIMBERING (COST).

Mr. TINKER: 5.
asked the Secretary for Mines the average cost per ton of coal raised for timbering the coal mines of Great Britain; and the total cost for the years 1928 and 1929?

Mr. SHINWELL: In 1928 the estimated total cost of timber and pit wood consumed at coal mines in Great Britain was approximately £8¼ millions, an average cost of 8¼d. per ton of saleable coal raised. The corresponding figures in 1929 were £8⅔ millions and 8d.

EMPLOYMENT.

Colonel CLIFTON BROWN: 6.
asked the Secretary for Mines if there has been an increase or decrease of employment in the mining industry during the months of January and February, 1931, and the amount of such increase or decrease?

Mr. SHINWELL: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Midlothian (Major Colville) on 4th March.

Major COLVILLE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is a growing feeling in the country on this subject, and
that very many men are being denied employment on account of the operation of the quota?

Mr. SHINWELL: I have already informed the hon. and gallant Member that he is entirely mistaken as to the facts.

EAST BRISTOL COLLIERIES (STOPPAGE).

Colonel BROWN: 7.
asked the Secretary for Mines if he can make any statement with regard to the stoppage of work at the East Bristol collieries?

Mr. SHINWELL: Towards the end of January my Department was warned of the possibility of a stoppage of work at the Kingswood and Parkfield Collieries, belonging to the East Bristol Collieries, Limited, due to the inability of the parties to agree to terms and conditions of employment. At the invitation both of the owners and of the workmen, a representative of my Department attended a series of conferences in the district, and as a result of these conferences both sides agreed to submit the points at issue to arbitration. The Court of Arbitration made its award last week, but the workmen declined to abide by it, and have ceased work. I understand that the owners have since made an offer of alternative terms, but that this also has been refused.

Colonel BROWN: Can the hon. Gentleman take any steps whatsoever to see that the principle of arbitration is complied with?

Mr. SHINWELL: I have no responsibility in that matter.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALL: What happens if one side declines to agree to the result?

OUTPUT.

Mr. G. MACDONALD: 8.
asked the Secretary for Mines the total output of coal in Great Britain for the months of January and February, 1931; and whether the output during this period has been equal to the demand?

Mr. SHINWELL: The estimated quantity of saleable goal raised in Great Britain during January, 1931, was 19,174,000 tons, and during February, 1931, 18,908,000 tons. This output was several
millions below the proportion of the quarter's allocation fixed by the Central Council under the Coal Mines Act, 1930. It is obvious, therefore, that demand was not equal to the permissible output.

REORGANISATION COMMISSION (CHAIRMAN).

Mr. DAGGAR: 9.
asked the Secretary for Mines if he will explain the circumstances and conditions in which the chairman of the Coal Mines Reorganisation Commission surrendered or commuted pension rights accruing to him; and whether any consideration in his salary of £7,000 a year was accorded to him in return for that surrender or commutation?

Mr. SHINWELL: I refrained from answering similar questions asked by several hon. Members on 3rd and 5th March because the Supplementary Estimate for my Department was on the Order Paper for the days on which the questions were put down, and also because an answer involved a statement which would necessarily be much longer than an ordinary answer to a question. Now that the Supplementary Estimate cannot be taken on Report until Friday next at the earliest, I do not propose any longer to delay a reply if I may have your indulgence, Sir, for a rather long statement.
Sir Ernest Cowers' appointment as chairman of the Coal Mines Reorganisation Commission is for a period of seven years, terminable by either side at the end of five years. Before this appointment, Sir Ernest Cowers held the important office of chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue. He was receiving a salary of £3,000 a year. As an established civil servant he reckoned his service for pension, and, had he remained in that office, he would have been eligible on retirement for age or on account of ill health, to a pension at the rate of one-eightieth of his salary, and to a lump sum allowance at the rate of one-thirtieth of his salary, for each year of his service as a civil servant. After 40 years' service in all, he would have become eligible to retire on a pension equivalent to half his salary and with a lump sum allowance of more than £4,000.
His appointment as Chairman of the Coal Mines Reorganisation Commission
involved the surrender of his appointment as Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue. He was taken right out of the Civil Service. The post to which he has been appointed is not a Civil Service post, and Sir Ernest's tenure of it has been treated as "approved employment" in accordance with the provisions of Section 4 of the Superannuation Act, 1914. One effect of these provisions is that the period of his employment as Chairman of the Coal Mines Reorganisation Commission cannot in any circumstances be reckoned for pension. A second consequence is that if Sir Ernest Gowers were to die in the course of that employment, a substantial death gratuity which, had he remained in the Civil Service would have been payable to his legal personal representatives, would not be payable. Thirdly, if Sir Ernest Gowers, after completion of his service on the Coal Mines Reorganisation Commission, were to resume employment in the Civil Service, he would be eligible on final retirement to a pension calculated with reference only to the years of his service in the Civil Service and his final Civil Service salary. Fourthly, if, during his employment as Chairman of the Coal Mines Reorganisation Commission he were to reach the age of 60 or to become permanently incapacitated by ill-health, Sir Ernest would be eligible under the provisions of the Superannuation Act to receive a pension related only to the period of his service in the Civil Service prior to his transfer to the Coal Mines Reorganisation Commission and to the Civil Service salary he was then receiving.
In accordance with practice, Sir Ernest is eligible for further employment in the Civil Service. But if he does not return to the Civil Service when his work on the Coal Commission comes to an end, as may well be the case, he forfeits inevitably the whole of his Civil Service pension.

Sir PHILIP CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Having now given the House a very complicated but full statement in regard to Sir Ernest Gowers' position and emoluments, does not the hon. Gentleman consider that the Committee would have been in a much better position to consider this matter had that statement been made when the question was raised in the Committee and, having made a
statement after the Committee stage of the Vote has been closed, would he agree to a proposal that the Vote should be re-committed in order that we might discuss whatever is necessary in the appropriate place to discuss it, namely, in Committee of Supply?

Mr. SHINWELL: I cannot agree to re-committing the Vote, because in any event the information that has been asked for is now available and Members can be fully armed with the facts in the Debate on Friday. I agree that the Committee would have been much better equipped for the purposes of Debate if the information had been at their disposal, but I was not myself aware that the pension rights question was to be raised and I had not the information at my command at that moment, but I took the first available opportunity of arming myself with the facts and would have given them to the House earlier than to-day if an opportunity had been provided.

Commander Sir BOLTON EYRES MONSELL: Will the hon. Gentleman consider this? It is evident that the Committee was not aware of the facts of the case when this matter should have been discussed in Committee. The Government have met us very fully in putting down the Report stage as first order for Friday. All my right hon. Friend asks is that he will re-commit the Vote and let us discuss it in Committee, which gives us a much better opportunity of dealing with the facts of the case and—I think I can answer for my friends—we would allow the Report stage to be quite formal and the Government would lose no time whatever.

Mr. SHINWELL: A full opportunity will be afforded of discussing the matter on Friday. It is true that, unlike the Committee stage, Members will be confined to one speech, but I can hardly regard that as a hardship.

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The hon. Gentleman has some Parliamentary experience. Is he not aware that the Committee stage is essentially a stage in which Members can put questions on these elaborate, detailed points and, without any waste of time, the Minister can make a series of replies, giving the information that the Committee requires, whereas on Report we shall have
a much more formal Debate in which the Minister can only speak once. I would ask him, therefore, to consult the President of the Board of Trade and urge him to give us an opportunity of discussing the real facts in Committee, in return for which we promise him that we will not occupy any further time than would have been occupied on Report.

Mr. SHINWELL: The right hon. Gentleman has put a simple point to me, but it appears that ample opportunity will be afforded for putting interpellations to me on Report. I presume that I might have, in that event, the leave of the House to reply to such questions.

Mr. TINKER: Do I take it that the Opposition prefer to take both Committee and Report on Friday if consent is given?

Mr. SHINWELL: That does not arise at all. The Committee stage has been disposed of. Hon. Members wished to have some information on pension rights. As far as I can recall the circumstances, they confined themselves to that simple point. I have given full information on it, and they have the remainder of the time between now and Friday to consider the reply that I have given.

EXPORT TRADE.

Colonel BROWN: 26.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he can now state the figures of coal exports for February, 1931, and those of February, 1930?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. William Graham): Particulars of coal exports during February, 1931, which I presume is the month intended, are not yet available, but they will be published in the "Accounts relating to Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom" on Thursday next. The figure for February, 1930, was given to the hon. and gallant Member on the 3rd March.

Colonel BROWN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there has been a very considerable fall between this month and last month?

Mr. GRAHAM: That question would require notice. I am afraid that unfortunately the tendency is downwards, but my hon. Friend will give the actual figure on Thursday.

Major COLVILLE: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that it has nothing to do with the quota?

Mr. GRAHAM: I have repeatedly given assurances to that effect.

Mr. MARLEY: If there is any fall in the exports, will it not be partly due to the trouble in the South Wales coalfield at the beginning of the year?

Mr. GRAHAM: Certainly, the export from South Wales was affected because of the fortnight's stoppage in that area.

Major THOMAS: Was not the stoppage in South Wales due to the effect of the quota system?

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD.

Mr. DAY: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can state the number of Empire Marketing Board poster frames that have been erected in the overseas Dominions; and will he give particulars?

The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. J. H. Thomas): Twenty-seven specimens of the Board's poster frames have been erected in centres of population in over-sea parts of the Empire in order to demonstrate the action taken by the Board to promote the sales of Empire produce in this country. Of these frames seven are in Australia, six in New Zealand, five in South Africa and nine in the British West Indies. The question of the erection of similar frames in Canada is under consideration.

Mr. DAY: Do any of these frames contain advertisements of products manufactured in the United Kingdom?

Mr. THOMAS: I do not know exactly what they contain, but I will make inquiries

COCOA.

Captain RONALD HENDERSON: 18.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will state the percentage fall in the value of cocoa f.f. Accra f.o.b. as at 28th February, 1931, as compared with the average price during 1913, and, similarly, the percentage fall in the retail price of beverage cocoa and
confectionery chocolate as at 28th February, 1931, as compared with the average price during 1913?

Mr. W. GRAHAM: Comparable quotations for cocoa f.f. Accra f.o.b. for 1913 and February, 1931, are not available. The price of this cocoa, as recorded in the "Statist," was 20s. 9d. per cwt. on 26th February, 1931. The corresponding figure for 1913 is not available but the average value of the raw cocoa exported from the Gold Coast in 1913 was £2 9s. 3d. per cwt. Information in possession of the Ministry of Labour indicates that the usual retail price of certain well-known standard proprietary brands of cocoa was 1s. 9d. per lb. at the beginning of February, 1931; in July, 1914, the prices of such cocoa usually ranged from 2s. 4d. to 2s. 8d. per lb. The average price of loose cocoa was about 1s. per lb. at the beginning of February, 1931, and about 1s. 2d. to 1s. 3d. per lb. in July, 1914. No information regarding the retail price of confectionery chocolate is available.

MINING TIMBER (IMPORTS).

Mr. TINKER: 21.
asked the President of the Board of Trade what was the total cost of mining timber imported into this country for the years 1929 and 1930; and will he say which are the three countries where we get the greatest supply from?

Mr. W. GRAHAM: I would refer my hon. Friend to the full tables of imports of pit-props given in reply to the question asked on 17th February by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Potts), of which I am sending him a copy.

Mr. HANNON: Is any effort being made by the Board of Trade to encourage pit-props from different parts of the Empire to come into the country?

Mr. GRAHAM: A certain amount has been done on that point, but I should require notice as to how far these supplies really compete with Empire products.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: Do the figures the right hon. Gentleman has given include re-exports to this country from Soviet Russia?

Mr. GRAHAM: I cannot say off-hand as to re-exports. The figures certainly
include the imports from Russia, among other countries, for the four years in question.

Mr. MILLS: Can my hon. Friend say whether the importers are sitting beside the right hon. Gentleman opposite?

GLOVES (IMPORTS).

Mr. GREENE (for Mr. OSWALD LEWIS): 25.
asked the President of the Board of Trade from which countries gloves were imported in January, 1930, and January, 1931; and what number of pairs of gloves were imported from each of these countries during the two periods in question?

Mr. W. GRAHAM: As the answer involves a number of figures I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. GREENE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the figures will show that these imports of foreign articles—[Interruption.]

Mr. SPEAKER: It is rather unusual for an hon. Member to ask a question and then proceed to give the information himself.

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: May we ask for the reply to be given now?

Mr. MARLEY: May I ask whether it is in order for an hon. Member to put down a question involving a great deal of expense if he already knows the answer and the figures

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: On a point of Order. May I draw your attention to the fact that we have 10 minutes before we reach the end of Question Time.

Mr. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member wants the answer, he can have it.

Mr. GREENE: I ask for the answer to be given now.

Mr. GRAHAM: It is rather a long answer with some tables of figures, but as a compromise I will read the essential figures. We imported during January, 1930, 39,000 dozen pairs of gloves of leather and fur, and in January, 1931, 143,000 dozen pairs. Then follows a list of the countries from which they were consigned, the leading countries being
Germany, 19,000; France, 24,000; and Italy, 84,000. Of fabric gloves of cotton or of cotton mixed with other materials, the total imports in January, 1930, were 100,000 dozen pairs, and in January, 1931, 273,000 dozen pairs, the most important consignment coming from Germany, 200,000 dozen pairs. In January, 1931, we imported 22,000 fabric gloves of other textile materials, and of gloves of other descriptions of wool, or of which the chief value is wool, 1,400 dozen pairs in January, 1930, and 465 dozen pairs in January, 1931. These figures are not strictly comparable, as during January, 1930, they include, in the case of dutiable goods, imports by parcel post and exclude goods transhipped under bond, whereas the figures for January, 1931, except in the case of goods containing silk or artificial silk, exclude imports by parcel post but include goods in transit.

Mr. GREENE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this enormous increase in the imports of these foreign articles is due to the lapsing of Safeguarding, which is throwing our workers out of employment and giving employment to the foreigner.

Mr. GRAHAM: No, I do not take that view. The imports have certainly increased, but I have not the least doubt that they were artificially increased during January, held up no doubt in view of the forthcoming disappearance of the Duty. A much better way is to take the average imports for months in other comparable years, and in point of fact these figures are actually lower.

Sir HERBERT SAMUEL: Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether the imports for the months preceding the repeal of the duty showed any decline, indicating that the imports were held back until, as one would expect, they would be able to come in free of duty?

Mr. GRAHAM: I should require notice of that question, but plainly the imports were artificially increased during January.

Mr. ERNEST WINTERTON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether a great portion of these gloves have been made on British machinery supplied from this country?

Mr. GRAHAM: Of that question also I should require notice. My hon. Friend

Following are the figures:

THE FOLLOWING TABLE shows the total quantity of the undermentioned descriptions of Gloves imported into the United Kingdom, and registered during the months of January, 1930 and 1931, distinguishing the principal countries whence consigned.

Description and Countries whence consigned.
January, 1930.
January, 1931.


Gloves of leather and fur:
Dozen pairs.
Dozen pairs.


Total Imports
39,069
143,917


of which consigned from:




Germany
3,575
19,079


Belgium
2,483
6,620


France
3,417
24,219


Luxemburg
498
2,517


Italy
25,653
84,175


Czechoslovakia
677
3,904


United States
2,214
1,591


Fabric gloves of cotton or of cotton mixed with other materials:




Total Imports
100,927
273,247


of which consigned from:




Germany
98,124
260,558


Czechoslovakia
260
3,412


United States
888
3,861


Japan
—
3,800


Fabric gloves of other textile materials:




Total Imports
7,594
22,876


of which consigned from:




Germany
7,594
22,443


Gloves of other descriptions: of wool or of which the chief value is wool:




Total Imports
1,400
465


of which consigned from:




Germany
444
240


Irish Free State
621
225


Of other textile materials:




Total Imports
7,701
11,041


of which consigned from:




Germany
7,592
9,783

COTTON INDUSTRY.

Mr. DOUGLAS HACKING (for Mr. HAMMERSLEY): 14.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he has any progress to report concerning the plans of the Government for the reorganisation of the cotton trade?

Mr. W. GRAHAM: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on the 24th February, of which I am sending him a copy. My right hon.
will realize that the question goes far beyond that on the Paper.
Friend the Home Secretary and I await the views of the Joint Committee of Cotton Trade Organisations on the matters which they were asked to consider.

Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will get really busy on this matter and do something?

Sir NAIRNE STEWART SANDEMAN: Is there going to be another meeting?

Mr. GRAHAM: Meetings are being held very regularly, but at the moment certain questions have been addressed to the representatives of the trade, and we must await their reply?

Mr. HERBERT GIBSON: May I ask whether the question of unnecessary middlemen is being discussed at the moment?

Mr. GRAHAM: The inquiry covers all parts of the problem.

Mr. REMER: Is the report of the Cotton Committee a dead letter now?

Mr. GRAHAM: No, Sir, far from it.

CANADA (DEPORTATIONS).

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he has now made representations to the Canadian Government in respect of the recent deportations from Canada of a number of British persons?

Mr. THOMAS: This question is still under consideration.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is the right hon. Gentleman intending to raise the matter at Ottawa?

Mr. THOMAS: As the hon. Member knows, it is a very difficult and delicate question. I prefer to say nothing except that it is still under consideration.

COASTGUARD SERVICE.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 17.
asked the President of the Board of Trade what is the average weekly pay of the watchers in the coastguard service; whether they lose any pay if off duty for sickness; whether the service is pensionable; and whether they are subject to cuts in pay on account of the cost-of-living figures?

Mr. W. GRAHAM: The present average weekly pay of coastguardsmen including cost-of-living bonus is 48s. 1d. and of station officers 54s. 7d. In addition they receive free unfurnished quarters and uniform clothing. Special allowances, varying from 4s. to 10s. per week are also paid at certain isolated stations, and senior coastguardsmen at all stations without a station officer receive
an allowance of 1s. per week, plus bonus. During sickness, station officers and coastguardsmen in common with other minor grades in the Civil Service, after a qualifying period of 12 months' service, receive two-thirds pay and bonus, less the amount of sickness benefit for which they are normally eligible under the National Health Insurance Acts. Sick pay is issued for absences of six weeks in the aggregate during any period of 12 months. Service in the coastguard is not pensionable and the pay is subject to the normal variations of bonus applicable to civil servants.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Will my right hon. Friend consider, in view of the nature of this service, doing something to prevent bonus cuts being made in the case of this loyal body of servants of the Crown?

Mr. GRAHAM: That involves, of course, the general question of bonus arrangements on which I could not go beyond recent Government replies.

Commander SOUTHBY: Would the whole question of the pay and possible pensions of coast watchers come within the purview of the Committee that is now sitting?

Mr. GRAHAM: It may in so far as it relates to the efficiency of the service for the particular point raised in the inquiry recently instituted.

CUNARD INSURANCE (AGREEMENT) ACT.

Mr. ALBERY: 22.
asked the President of the Board of Trade what sum has been placed in the market on account of the construction risk for the new Cunard liner?

Mr. W. GRAHAM: I understand that rather more than £2,500,000 of the construction risk has so far been placed in the market.

MERCANTILE MARINE (PENSIONS).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 23.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he intends to propose legislation for a contributory pension scheme for officers of the royal mercantile marine; and will he state the nature of the proposed scheme?

Mr. W. GRAHAM: The answer is in the negative, but proposals for a voluntary scheme are under discussion by certain of the interests concerned.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Officers Merchant Navy Federation has prepared a contributory pension scheme, and, in the event of it being acceptable, will the Board of Trade assist in its administration by arranging for the deduction of the contributions at source?

Mr. GRAHAM: Yes, that is one of the bodies interested in a voluntary scheme. I should like to add that if they formed a sound voluntary scheme the Board would have great pleasure in giving it such encouragement as was within their power.

CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS.

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr. DAY:

24. To ask the President of the Board of Trade the number of applications for registration of British song films that have been refused during the previous 12 months; and can he give the names concerned and the reasons for such refusal?

Mr. DAY: May I point out that in the second line of my question the word should be "sound" instead of "song"?

Mr. W. GRAHAM: That makes the reply a little different. The answer to the first part of the question is "None," and therefore the second part does not arise.

BRITISH ARMY (BRANDY).

Mr. HANNON: 27.
asked the Secretary of State for War what contracts for supplies of South African brandy have been placed at any time by the War Office; if such brandy was used for hospital purposes and was found to be satisfactory; and is the War Office prepared to give special consideration to Empire brandy in future contracts?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Sanders): Two contracts have been placed in the past for South African brandy. This was required for hospital purposes and met require-
ments satisfactorily. The War Department is always prepared to give special consideration to Empire over foreign supplies.

Mr. HANNON: While thanking the hon. Gentleman for the answer, may I ask him, arising out of his reply, whether his Department will give every possible encouragement to the Overseas Dominions to supply brandy?

Mr. MARLEY: Before my hon. Friend replies, will he persuade—[Interruption.]

Mr. SPEAKER: Mr. Louis Smith.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

SENTENCE, INVERNESS.

Lieut. Commander KENWORTHY: 29.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland, whether his attention has been called to the case of an 18 year old girl, Margaret Thompson Allison, of Glasgow, who was sentenced to 60 days' imprisonment at Inverness by the sheriff, recently, for setting fire to some straw at the steading of Milltown of Moyness, Auldearn; if he is aware that evidence was given proving that this girl was kept on the farm without an afternoon or Sunday off and under serious conditions of overwork; and whether he will consider this case with a view to the reduction of the sentence?

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. William Adamson): The answer to the first two parts of the question is in the negative. I have, however, made inquiry and am informed that the girl was charged on indictment with culpably and recklessly setting fire to straw, that she pled guilty, and that in consequence no evidence was led. It was stated in court that the fire caused loss of £1,000 to the tenant of the premises, in addition to the damage done to the buildings. A statement regarding the girl's alleged conditions of employment was made by her law agent and considered by the court before sentence was pronounced. On the information before me I am not satisfied that I would be justified in advising interference with the sentence. If, however, my hon. and gallant Friend has any further information to give me I shall be prepared to consider it.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is my right hon. Friend aware that relatives of the girl—poor people—who travelled from Glasgow to give evidence, were not allowed to give evidence by the Sheriff; and is he further aware that the Sheriff himself admitted that the girl was working under conditions akin to slavery?

Mr. ADAMSON: I have already told my hon. and gallant Friend that if he has further information to give than that which is available to me, I shall be prepared to consider it.

MARRIAGE LAW (GRETNA GREEN).

Mr. DAY: 30.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is now in a position to make a statement with reference to the registration of unregistered marriages that take place at Gretna Green?

Mr. W. ADAMSON: Any proposals for the amendment of the marriage law of Scotland would require to be carefully examined by a competent committee, and I am considering the appointment of such a committee.

MORAY FIRTH (FOREIGN TRAWLERS).

Major McKENZIE WOOD: 31.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement with regard to his personal investigation of the circumstances attending the recent detruction by foreign trawlers of cod-nets in the Moray Firth; and, in particular, whether he will arrange for a cruiser to be detailed for special duty to protect the fishermen from loss till the end of the present fishing season?

Mr. W. ADAMSON: A conference, at which I presided, was held at Buckie on Saturday last, the 7th instant. In addition to representatives of the Fishery Board for Scotland and the commander of His Majesty's Ship "Spey," the naval vessel on fishing patrol in the Moray Firth, there were present some 60 skippers, together with representatives of local authorities interested, fish salesmen and others. The situation was fully discussed, and I am now considering what further steps can be taken including the possibility of further protection. As the hon. and gallant Member is aware, the problem of the Moray Firth is one which this Government has inherited from previous Governments
and is one which does not admit of an easy solution.

Major WOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is the second time during his present period of office that those depredations have taken place?

Mr. ADAMSON: I am aware that from time to time during the last 20 years, or thereabouts, loss has been sustained by Moray Firth fishermen. I am well aware of that fact. I am also well aware, just as my hon. and gallant Friend is well aware, of the difficulties of the situation.

Major WOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of the question? Will he arrange for a cruiser to be continuously on the fishing ground until the end of the fishing season?

Mr. ADAMSON: In the course of my reply, I answered the last part of the hon. and gallant Member's question. I said "including the possibility of further protection."

Mr. WOMERSLEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware—

Mr. SPEAKER: We had this matter discussed on the Adjournment the other day.

Major WOOD: On a point of Order. May I point out that, although I raised this matter on the Adjournment, the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was cut short by the fact that we had reached half-past Eleven, and he was not able to complete his statement. May I have an answer?

AFFORESTATION.

Major WOOD: 32.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether, after consultation between the Forestry Commission and the Department of Agriculture for Scotland, as provided for by Section 3 of the Forestry Act, 1919, the Department has agreed to all lands acquired by the Forestry Commission in Scotland being withdrawn from agriculture for forestry purposes; and whether he will state how much of the land was acquired without full agreement?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Johnston): The answer to the first part of the question
is in the negative. Section 3 of the Forestry Act, 1919, requires the Forestry Commission to consult the appropriate agricultural Department, but it does not require them to accept the views of that Department. I must refer the hon. and gallant Member to the Commission for information as to the number of cases in which the views of the Department of Agriculture for Scotland may not have been accepted.

Major WOOD: If consultation means simply intimation, what is the use of the Forestry Commission giving any intimation at all?

Mr. JOHNSTON: Our information is that no permanent pasture or arable land has been taken by the Forestry Commission unless for nursery purposes.

Mr. MACPHERSON: Is the hon. Member not aware that there are a great many complaints all over Scotland, particularly in the North, that land which is meant for purely agricultural purposes is being taken by the Forestry Commission, while there are thousands of other acres fit for forestry which they could take.

Mr. JOHNSTON: As I have already said, no permanent pasture or arable land has been taken by the Forestry Commission, unless it has been a very small portion here or there for nursery purposes.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: What about the Barcaldine case? Was not pasture taken?

VEGETABLES, FRUIT AND FLOWERS (IMPORTS).

Major COLVILLE: 33.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has considered the communication from the Edinburgh Nurserymen and Gardeners' Trade Association urging the control of the imports of foreign vegetables, soft fruit and bulbous flowers; and what answer he has returned?

Mr. JOHNSTON: No answer has yet been made to the communication referred to. The representations made by the Edinburgh Nurserymen and Gardeners' Trade Association are similar to those previously made by the Scottish Fruit-growing Associations, and I would refer
the hon. and gallant Member to my right hon. Friend's reply to his question of 24th February on this subject, to the effect that it was quite clear to him that the first necessity in this industry is that the Scottish growers should organise themselves and put their marketing arrangements on a sound basis, and that he hoped that the Marketing Bill would give them the opportunity to do so.

Major COLVILLE: Does that answer indicate that the Government refuse to consider under any circumstances helping this industry by controlling the importation of foreign produce?

STEAMSHIP SERVICE, APPLECROSS.

Mr. MACPHERSON: 40.
asked the Minister of Transport if he is aware that the MacBrayne steamer going from Stornoway to Kyle of Lochalsh has suspended its morning call at Applecross, and that a passenger on the MacBrayne steamer from Applecross to Kyle of Lochalsh, a few miles to the south, has to proceed from Applecross to Stornoway, 60 miles to the north, and return from there, passing Applecross on the way, on the following day; and what steps he proposes to take to make the MacBrayne Company implement that part of their contract which guaranteed a maintenance of existing services, in view of the inconvenience and hardship caused to the inhabitants of the Apple-cross district?

Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS (Lord of the Treasury): The following is the reply which I have been asked to give on behalf of my right hon. Friend. As I informed the right hon. and learned Member in reply to a question which he asked on this subject on the 31st October, 1929. I have agreed that the hazardous call during the night of the Stornoway mail steamer at Applecross should be discontinued during the winter months. I may add, however, that arrangements have been made to secure that, subject to weather conditions, calls shall continue to be made in cases where illness in the Applecross district necessitates the removal of patients to hospital.

Mr. MACPHERSON: Is the hon. Member aware that the children cannot get back from their holidays because the steamer does not call, and that if there
are any bad cases of illness, and there have been several cases of illness, no doctor can be got?

Mr. EDWARDS: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will either see my right hon. Friend or put down another question. Obviously, I cannot reply.

NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: 34.
asked the Minister of Pensions what was the total cost of the pensions paid in the year ended 31st March, 1930, to widows and children of ex-officers and men who died of war disabilities, for which they had been drawing pensions; and what part of this cost represents pensions which began in the period in question?

Mr. C. EDWARDS: In the temporary absence of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions, I have been asked to reply. The total cost of pensions to widows and children of ex-officers and men for the year referred to was £16,438,755. The records in the Ministry do not enable my right hon. Friend to say what proportion of this sum was paid in cases where the deceased ex-officer or man died while in receipt of pension. New awards of pension to widows and children were made during the same year of a total annual value of £121,327. The proportion of this fresh expenditure which was actually defrayed during the year cannot be stated exactly, but it may be taken as approximately two-thirds.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE.

SUB-OFFICES (WELLING, BEXLEY HEATH, BARNEHURST).

Mr. MILLS: 37.
asked the Postmaster-General how many sub-post offices have been opened in the postal areas of Welling, Bexley Heath, and Barnehurst, and the numbers of postal staffs employed in those areas in 1925 and 1930, respectively?

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Viant): Ten sub-post offices have been opened in the Welling, Bexley Heath, and Barnehurst postal areas, and the postal officers employed in these areas number 23 in 1925 and 45 in 1930.

CANADIAN INLAND MAILS (AIR TRANSIT).

Mr. HURD: 39.
asked the Postmaster-General what arrangements are being made in conjunction with the Canadian authorities for the partial use of air transit for Transatlantic mails to and from St. Lawrence ports and inland centres of Canada?

Mr. VIANT: It has been arranged with the Canadian authorities that, as soon as the connecting air service is available, letters prepaid for air transmission will be carried by sea to the Strait of Belle Isle and thence by air to Montreal and beyond. An announcement regarding the date of opening of the service and the air fees payable will be made in due course.

Mr. HURD: Can the hon. Member give an indication how far inland this air transport is likely to go in Canada?

Mr. VIANT: That must be made the subject of another question.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (CAB-RANK TELEPHONE Box).

Lieut.-Colonel Sir GODFREY DALRYMPLE - WHITE (for Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLE): 38.
asked the Postmaster-General whether it will be possible for him to arrange for the fixing of a cab-rank telephone box at a near-by cab rank to facilitate the summoning of cabs to New Palace Yard for the use of Members?

Mr. VIANT: Telephonic communication with the cab-rank in New Palace Yard may be obtained by asking the Houses of Parliament switchboard operator for extension 111. Other cab ranks in the vicinity have telephones, those most conveniently situated being Victoria 7167 and Victoria 3600. I understand that the facilities available to Members for obtainings cabs are being considered by the Lord Great Chamberlain.

Mr. BARR: Will the Postmaster-General see that Members make sure that all these motor-cars and cabs are of British manufacture?

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is the Minister not aware that taxicab men find it very unprofitable carrying Members of Parliament?

LOG AND GARMENT PIECE- WORKERS (RECORDS).

Mr. MORLEY: 41.
asked the Minister of Labour, in View of the fact that F. 422 does not define how records are kept for log and garment pieceworkers, if she will inform the House how such records are to be kept?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Miss Bondfield): I have no power to prescribe the exact form of record, but the facts to be recorded are stated in paragraph 4 of the leaflet F. 422 for workers employed on general minimum piece rates, including log workers, and in paragraphs 5 to 9 for workers employed on garment piece rates.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

KENT.

Mr. MILLS: 44.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has yet received from the Kent County Council a copy of the survey required by the Housing (No. 2) Act, 1930; if he will state how many houses are inhabited but unfit for human habitation; and how many houses are suggested within the five-years plan of the Act?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Miss Lawrence): I would refer by hon. Friend to the reply given to similar questions recently put by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Winterton), of which I am sending him a copy.

BRITISH MATERIALS.

Major OWEN: 50.
asked the Minister of Health if he will press upon all local authorities engaged in housing schemes aided by Government subsidies to give preference to British materials on the lines adopted by the London County Council and other local authorities?

Miss LAWRENCE: My right hon. Friend has already issued a circular, a copy of which I am sending to the hon. and gallant Member, urging local authorities to make use, to the utmost extent practicable, of goods and materials of home production or manufacture.

Major OWEN: In view of the fact that a large number of public authorities are using foreign slates for their housing schemes and that after a period of only
three years they have had to be stripped, will the hon. Lady convey to her right hon. Friend that it is necessary to exert something more than ordinary pressure in this case?

Miss LAWRENCE: If the hon. Member will peruse the circular, I think that it will give him satisfaction. I will convey his remarks to my right hon. Friend.

Major NATHAN: Is the hon. Lady aware of the fact that the practice adopted by the London County Council has involved the diversion from the building of houses for working-class people of money otherwise available for that purpose, and has increased working-class rents and rates?

NATIONAL EXPENDITURE (MINISTERS' SALARIES).

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Sir ASSHETON POWNALL:

45. To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can now say what is the substantial contribution which Members of the Cabinet are prepared to make to the cause of economy.

Sir A. POWNALL: May I express my regret at the cause which is keeping the Chancellor of the Exchequer away from the House?

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I thank the hon. Member for his remarks. I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) on the 16th February.

Sir A. POWNALL: In view of the fact that we are asked to await developments, and seeing that the original statement was made four weeks ago, cannot something be done to expedite an answer?

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I am afraid that I cannot add anything to what I have said.

INCOME TAX (PROPERTY ASSESSMENT).

Mr. C. WILLIAMS: 46.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what instructions have been issued to inspec-
tors of taxes with regard to the reduction of assessment on property now being revalued under Schedule A?

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: The Commissioners of Inland Revenue, in the exercise of their statutory duties in relation to all the taxes placed under their care and management, have frequent occasion to give instructions and advice to their inspectors and other officers. These communications are conveyed sometimes orally and sometimes in writing. My right hon. Friend is not prepared to depart from the invariable practice by authorising the publication of internal communications of this character.

IMPERIAL SERVICE MEDAL.

Captain W. G. HALL: 47.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the names of the members of the selection committee for awards of the Imperial Service Medal, and by whom appointed; and what are the regulations governing the issue of this medal?

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: The selection committee consists of the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, and the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the Statutes governing the award of the medal.

CASUAL WARD ACOOMMODATION, LEYTONSTONE.

Mr. SORENSEN: 51.
asked the Minister of Health what is the nightly accommodation in the casual ward at Union Road, Leytonstone; what number of applicants have been refused admission; what instructions have to be observed when applications greatly exceed the accommodation; and whether he has received complaints or information respecting insufficient casual ward accommodation at this and similar institutions elsewhere?

Miss LAWRENCE: There is sleeping accommodation for 70 men and six women in the West Ham casual wards; when the wards are full further applicants are not refused admission but are informed of the fact and told that there is vacant
accommodation for them at the Hackney casual wards which are two miles away; applicants who are not fit to proceed to Hackney are admitted to the West Ham wards even though the wards are full, and are provided with emergency accommodation. My right hon. Friend has received reports on them which he has communicated to the local authority for their attention and consideration.

Mr. SORENSEN: Is the hon. Lady aware that a man was charged recently at the local police court with having broken a window in this particular institution and that he gave as his explanation and justification the fact that he was refused admission for the night? Further, may I ask whether she realises the distance that a man has to travel late at night from Leytonstone, and whether some other arrangements can be made to provide better accommodation for these unfortunate people?

Miss LAWRENCE: The case mentioned by the hon. Member has not been brought to my notice, but I will inform my right hon. Friend. With regard to the general matter of casual wards, the Minister of Health is engaged in a revision of the orders and regulations, and has communicated with nearly all local authorities on the matter.

MANGANESE MINES, BURMA (LABOUR CONDITIONS).

Mr. PRICE (for Mr. HAYCOCK): 16.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the fact that the labour employed in the manganese mines in Burma is supplied by the criminal tribes settlement, he will take steps to prohibit the importation of manganese produced by such labour?

Mr. W. GRAHAM: I understand that labour of the kind in question is in no sense prison or convict labour. In any event there is no power under existing legislation to take the course suggested, and, as I have said on many occasions in this House, His Majesty's Government are not prepared to seek such powers.

Mr. MILLS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the whole of this native labour recruited for this particular work
have to have their finger prints taken and are engaged under conditions which demand an inquiry by his Department?

Mr. GRAHAM: I understand that this labour is in an exceptional position, but my information is that it is in no sense convict labour and does not come within the Foreign (Prison Made) Goods Act, 1907, which bears upon a problem, of this kind.

BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY.

Sir ERNEST SHEPPERSON (for Mr. LOUIS SMITH): 36.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will state the numbers of factories which have concluded agreements satisfactorily to the beet-sugar growers under the terms of the Government offer; and which are the factories which have not concluded such agreements?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Dr. Addison): Twelve beet-sugar factories have accepted the terms of the Government offer of a special advance and have offered beet contracts to growers on the basis of the Government conditions. The following six factories have not made use of the Government offer: Cantley, Ely, Ipswich, Kelham, King's Lynn and Peterborough.

Sir E. SHEPPERSON: Am I right in assuming that the factories that have not entered into the agreement are for the most part in the Anglo-Dutch group of factories?

Dr. ADDISON: They are all in that group except Peterborough.

Sir E. SHEPPERSON: Has the right hon. Gentleman used, and is he still using, his best endeavours to persuade the Anglo-Dutch group of factories which have, as he said, made these large profits, to come into the agreement with the other factories?

Dr. ADDISON: I am engaged in that endeavour.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Do these happenings not show—

HON. MEMBERS: Order, order!

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. STANLEY BALDWIN: I have two questions to put to the Prime Minister. First, has there been any change in the business announced for Thursday; and, secondly, does the right hon. Gentleman propose, if the suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule be carried to-day, to do any business other than the first Order on the Paper?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): Representations have been made to me that it is desirable to change the business for Thursday, and the Government are perfectly prepared to do so. Therefore, with the assent of both sections of the Opposition, an opportunity will be afforded on Thursday for a Debate on Indian affairs, when the Vote on Account on Civil Estimates, 1931, will be taken in Committee of Supply. For the convenience of Members I may add that we propose to move Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on the Air Estimates and to take the necessary Votes in Committee on Tuesday, the 17th. That was originally the business for Thursday; it should be transferred to Tuesday, which originally had been assigned to the Vote on Account. With reference to the second question, following the practice of recent years, the object of the Motion for the Suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule is to ensure that the Army Votes that have been put clown are taken to-night. It is the usual thing.

Mr. BALDWIN: The right hon. Gentleman has left me in some doubt. What is the other section of the Opposition?

HON. MEMBERS: Churchill!

The PRIME MINISTER: I hope the right hon. Gentleman has not misunderstood me. I did not mean his colleague who is going to sit alongside him later.
Motion made, and Question put,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]

The House divided: Ayes, 242; Noes, 128.

Division No. 187.]
AYES.
[3.48 p.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro')
Arnott, John


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Alpass, J. H.
Attlee, Clement Richard


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Ammon, Charles George
Ayles, Walter


Baker, John (Wolvarhampton, Bilston)
Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth)
Palmer, E. T.


Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley)
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Perry, S. F.


Barnes, Alfred John
Hoffman, P. C.
Peters, Dr. Sidney John


Barr, James
Hopkin, Daniel
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.


Batey, Joseph
Hore-Belisha, Leslie
Phillips, Dr. Marion


Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood
Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield)
Picton-Turbervill, Edith


Bennett, Sir E. N. (Cardiff, Central)
Hunter, Dr. Joseph
Pole, Major D. G.


Bennett, William (Batteries, South)
Isaacs, George
Potts, John S.


Benson, G.
Jenkins, Sir William
Price, M. P.


Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Pybus, Percy John


Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret
Jones, F. Llewellyn- (Flint)
Ramsay, T. B. Wilson


Bowen, J. W.
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Rathbone, Eleanor


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Raynes, W. R.


Broad, Francis Alfred
Jones, Rt. Hon. Lelf (Camborne)
Richards, R.


Brockway, A. Fenner
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Bromfield, William
Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.
Rlley, Ben (Dewsbury)


Brothers, M.
Kelly, W. T.
Romerll, H. G.


Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayrshire)
Kennedy, Rt. Hon. Thomas
Rosbotham, D. S. T.


Buchanan, G.
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Rothschild, J. de


Burgess, F. G.
Kinley, J.
Rowson, Guy


Buxton, C R. (Yorks. W. R. Elland)
Knight, Holford
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Cape, Thomas
Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)


Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S.W.)
Lathan, G.
Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)


Charleton, H. C.
Law, Albert (Bolton)
Sanders, W. S.


Chater, Daniel
Law, A. (Rossendale)
Sandham, E.


Church, Major A. G.
Lawrence, Susan
Sawyer, G. F.


Clarke, J. S.
Lawson, John James
Scrymgeour, E.


Cluse, W. S.
Leach, W.
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern)
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Compton, Joseph
Lees, J.
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis


Cove, William G.
Lewis, T. (Southampton)
Sherwood, G. H.


Daggar, George
Lindley, Fred W.
Shield, George William


Dallas, George
Lloyd, C. Ellis
Shillaker, J. F.


Dalton, Hugh
Longbottom, A. W.
Shinwell, E.


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Longden, F.
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Day, Harry
Lovat-Fraser, J. A.
Simmons, C. J.


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Lowth, Thomas
Sinclair, Sir A. (Caithness)


Dudgeon, Major C. R.
Lunn, William
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Dukes, C.
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)


Duncan, Charles
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley)


Ede, James Chuter
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
McElwee, A.
Smith, Tom (Pontefract)


Edwards, E. (Morpeth)
McEntee, V. L.
Smith, W. R. (Norwich)


England, Colonel A.
McKinlay, A.
Snell, Harry


Foot, Isaac
MacLaren, Andrew
Snowden, Thomas (Accrington)


Freeman, Peter
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
Sorensen, R.


Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)
McShane, John James
Stamford, Thomas W.


Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, N.)
Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton)
Stephen, Campbell


George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd (Car'vn)
Mander, Geoffrey le M.
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Gibson, H. M. (Lanes, Mossley)
Manning, E. L.
Strauss, G. R.


Gill, T. H.
March, S.
Sullivan, J.


Gillett, George M.
Marley, J.
Sutton, J. E.


Glassey, A. E.
Marshall, Fred
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby)


Gossling, A. G.
Mathers, George
Tinker, John Joseph


Gould, F.
Matters, L. W.
Townend, A. E.


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Maxton, James
Viant, S. P.


Graham, Rt. Hon. Win. (Edin., Cont.)
Melville, Sir James
Walkden, A. G.


Gray, Milner
Messer, Fred
Walker, J.


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Colne)
Middleton, G.
Wallace, H. W.


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Millar, J. D.
Watkins, F. C.


Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.)
Mills, J. E.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Milner, Major J.
Wellock, Wilfred


Groves, Thomas E.
Montague, Frederick
Welsh, James (Paisley)


Grundy, Thomas W.
Morley, Ralph
Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge)


Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Hackney, S.)
West, F. R.


Hall. G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.)
Westwood, Joseph


Hall, J. H (Whitechapel)
Muff, G.
White. H. G.


Hall, Capt. W. G. (Portsmouth, C.)
Muggeridge, H. T.
Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)


Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn)
Murnin, Hugh
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Zetland)
Nathan, Major H. L.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Hardle, George D.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Harris, Percy A.
Noel Baker, P. J.
Wilson, J. (Oldham)


Hastings, Dr. Somerville
Noel-Buxton, Baroness (Norfolk, N.)
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Hayes, John Henry
Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston)
Winterton, G. E.(Leicester, Loughb'gh)


Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley)
Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff)


Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff, S.)
Owen, Major G. (Carnarvon)



Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow)
Owen, H. F. (Hereford)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield)
Palin, John Henry.
Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. Thurtle.


Herriotts, J.
Paling, Wilfrid



NOES.


Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles
Ashley. Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid, W.
Atkinson, C.


Albery, Irving James
Astor, Viscountess
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley)


Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.)
Atholl, Duchess of
Ba[...]niel, Lord




Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Forestler-Walker, Sir L.
Preston, Sir Walter Rueben.


Beaumont, M. W.
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Reid, David D. (County Dawn)


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon
Ganzoni, Sir John
Remer, John R.


Berry, Sir George
Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall)


Betterton, Sir Henry B.
Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Rodd, Rt. Hon. sir James Rennell


Bird, Ernest Roy
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
Ross, Ronald D.


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Greene, W. p. Crawford
Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.


Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W.
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Brass, Captain Sir William
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Salmon, Major I.


Briscoe, Richard George
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart


Brown, Brig.-Gen.H.C.(Berks, Newb'y)
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Savery, S. S.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)
Shepperson, Sir Ernest Whittome


Bullock, Captain Malcolm
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Simms, Major-General J.


Butler, R. A.
Hartington, Marquess of
Smith, R.W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Henderson, Capt. R.R.(Oxf'd, Henley)
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Campbell, E. T.
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Smithers, Waldron


Carver, Major W. H.
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Cattle Stewart, Earl of
Hard, Percy A.
Southby, Commander A. R. J.


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Hurst, Sir Gerald B.
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.


Cayzer, Maj.Sir Herbt. R.(Prtsmth,S.)
Hutchison, Maj.-Gen. Sir R.
Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur


Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Knox, Sir Alfred
Sueter, Rear-Admiral M. F.


Cockerill, Brig, General sir George
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Taylor, Vice-Admiral E. A.


Colville, Major D. J.
Lewis, Oswald (Colchester)
Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton)


Courtauld, Major J. S.
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Cranborne, Viscount
Macquisten, F. A.
Train, J.


Crichton-Stuart, Lord C.
Maltland, A. (Kent, Faversham)
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Crookshank, Capt. H. C.
Makins, Brigadier-General E.
Turton, Robert Hugh


Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West)
Mitchell, Sir W, Lane (Streatham)
Wallace, Capt. D. E. (Hornsey)


Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Mitchell-Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W.
Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert


Dairymple White, Lt.-Col. Sir Godfrey
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B.
Warrender, sir Victor


Davies. Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset, Yeovil)
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)
Wayland, Sir William A.


Davison, sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Mu[...]rhead, A. J.
Wells, Sydney R.


Dawson, Sir Philip
Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G.(Ptrsf'ld)
Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)


Dugdale, Capt. T. L.
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Eden, Captain Anthony
O'Neill, Sir H.
Womersley, W. J.


Elliot, Major Walter E.
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton


Erskine, Lord (Somerset,Weston.s.-M.)
Penny, Sir George



Everard, W. Lindsay
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstapi[...])
Major Sir George Hennessy and Sir Frederick Thomson.


Ferguson, Sir John
Pownall, Sir Assheton



Resolution agreed to.

NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COUNCIL.

Mr. MANDER: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a National Industrial Council; and for other purposes connected therewith.
I move this Motion with the desire to make a contribution towards the new machinery for conciliation and co-operation in industry which I think we all feel to be essential if we are to regain our old-time prosperity. I think we all feel the necessity for harmony in industry. There was in 1919 a National Industrial Conference, very much on the lines of the body proposed in this Bill. That was a conference at which representatives of the employers and the employed came to agreement on a large number of important points. The agreement was not carried into effect owing to the slump which arrived at that time and the depression which, in many directions, supervened. Later on, during what are known as the Mond-Turner discussions, an agreement was come to that a National Industrial Council should be set up and one finds among members of all parties, the desire for a body of that kind in one form
or another. I may mention that National Industrial Councils have been set up in the following countries: Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, South Africa, Spain and the United States of America.
4.0 p.m.
The proposal in this Bill is that there should be set up a body in the nature of an industrial Parliament. It would not interfere in any way with Parliament. I believe it would assist to a considerable extent the work of Parliament and relieve it of a good deal of the detailed business which it does at present, and thus prevent waste of time and energy. There would be 300 members, consisting of 40 representatives of the House of Commons, 20 of the House of Lords, 100 members chosen by representative bodies of employers, 100 chosen by trade unions and workers representatives and 40 ex officio members. There would also be a smaller body which would meet once a month to consider various matters to be brought before the council. The objects of this National Industrial Council would be mainly three. First of all, it would be a normal channel
of communication between organised industry on both sides and the Minister of Labour of the day, and, therefore, through him, or through her, to this House. Secondly, I believe that it would do a great deal to save the time of this House, and to enable better and more effective Measures to be brought forward. Probably, as a result of the discussion in the National Council, agreement would be arrived at on a great number of points, so that when a Bill actually arrived in this House, there would be only a limited number of trivial points to be discussed and agreed upon or divided upon in this House. I have in mind such Bills as the Factories Bill, Unemployment Insurance and other Bills of that kind. Every Measure, whether Government or private, affecting industry, would go through, as it were, a sifting process in the National Industrial Council, and would come here, probably, to find a much readier access to the Statute Book than is possible at the present time. In that way, time would be made available for other Measures which Members are continually asking to be brought forward.
The third way in which, I believe, a council of this nature would assist the country, would be in dealing with possible stoppages, whether lock-outs or strikes. A great deal of excellent work in this direction is done, we know, by the Trades Union Congress at the present time as a mediatory body when a dispute breaks out, but, I think, such work would be much more effectively done if you had a body representing both sides of the industry, and ever looking ahead and preventing friction from actually arising. I believe that a body of this kind might render very great service to the nation. I well recognise that a Bill of this kind is not likely at the present stage, or in the circumstances of the moment, to reach the Statute Book at a very rapid pace. I realise that it is a matter which requires to be considered a great deal, but I do ask the House to allow the Bill to receive a First Reading now, in order that it may be printed, and its provisions, which, of course, I have not been able to describe in any detail, may be carefully considered by all those
in this country who are closely interested in matters of this kind. I hope the result may be that it will do something to assist the work of Parliament, and to promote the great cause of industrial peace in this country.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mander, Sir Robert Aske, Mr. Granville, Mr. Gray, Mr. Kingsley Griffith, Mr. Harris, Mr. Hore-Belisha, Mr. Philip Oliver, and Mr. Graham White.

NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COUNCIL BILL,

"to establish a National Industrial Council; and for other purposes connected therewith," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 108.]

CUMBERLAND MARKET (ST. PANCRAS) BILL.

Reported, without Amendment, from the Select Committee.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of Proceedings to be printed.

Bill, not amended, re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Tomorrow.

STANDING ORDERS.

Resolution reported from the Select Committee;
That, in the case of the Aldershot Gas, Water, and District Lighting Bill, Petition for additional Provision, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to insert their additional Provision if the Committee on the Bill think fit.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

STANDING COMMITTEE C.

Mr. Frederick Hall reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee C: Mr. Bowen; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Gordon Macdonald.

Mr. Frederick Hall further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee C (added in respect of the Mining Industry (Welfare Fund) Bill): Sir William Edge; and had appointed in substitution: Sir Donald Maclean.

Reports to lie upon the Table.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

ARMY ESTIMATES, 1931.

MR. SHAW'S STATEMENT.

Order for Committee read.

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. T. Shaw): I beg to move, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
In presenting the Estimates, may I, as my first word, venture to express, I am sure on behalf of all the Members of the House, our deep sense of condolence with the widows and the relatives of the late Minister of War, Sir Laming Worthington - Evans, and the late Quartermaster - General, Sir Hastings Anderson. We all knew Sir Laming Worthington-Evans in the House, and we knew that he was what the Scots would call "a doughty fechter." Still, he left no sting behind. As to Sir Hastings Anderson, I think there was no question that his eminent gifts would have fitted him, had he lived, for the highest military rank this country can offer. If I may use an expression often used by the Viennese, "May the earth lie lightly on them!"
I venture to adopt the same method that I adopted last year in presenting the Estimates. I think that it met with general approval, because whatever was the opinion of the contents of the Estimates, all Members of the House, I think, agreed that it was inadvisable to parade long columns of figures, that it was much better to state plainly the broad, general principles, and only to use those figures which were necessary as illustrations of the arguments which were used, with the definite understanding, of course, that all details would be supplied wherever required, and whenever asked for in the course of the discussion. Therefore, I shall venture to give the smallest possible number of figures, because the Estimates themselves have been drawn up, I think I may say, with exemplary thoroughness by the permanent staff, and in themselves give an answer to nearly every question that can be asked on the method of spending money, and the causes for which the money has been spent.
The broad fact emerges that the Estimates result in a definite saving, that this saving is due to many causes, and that many causes have militated against it, because we shall spend nearly £900,000 less than we have this year, but we shall receive in Appropriations-in-Aid some £330,000 less than this year. The net saving, therefore, is £570,000. By far the greatest item in the saving is the fall in prices and the cost of living, which amounts to £700,000 and the greatest increase in cost is due to the fact that we have to spend some £200,000 because of the exhaustion of the surplus stocks of ammunition. That, with the added fact that the economy in clothing of last year could not be repeated this year, mainly accounts for the difference in the Estimates.
I will now leave the figures relating to finance, and deal with the questions that seem to have aroused interest in the House during the year, and which deal with broad, general policy for the future. The questions that have been mentioned during the year in the House are economy, vocational training, recruiting, the question of the quarters of the men, the question of mechanisation, the question of disarmament, ration allowance, the question of the medical services, the War Office staff, commissions from the ranks, and the establishment at Porton. I hope to deal shortly with these matters as I go along in the Estimates speech. With regard to the necessity for economy, there is no need for me to labour that necessity. Everyone knows it and I want to tell the House—I think it already knows it, but the repetition will not do any harm—that last June all the Commands were asked very carefully to consider every item of expenditure, and to economise wherever economy could be achieved without definite disservice to the Service for which the War Office exists. Recommendations were received from the Commands, and those recommendations have been acted upon as far as possible. I think I may say without any fear of contradiction that the closest possible attention has been paid to securing economies wherever they could be secured, and that there is, as far as one can see, no waste in the administration. On the greater general question of economy, may I tender from
this Box my thanks to the members of the Army Council, both military and civil, for having helped in arranging the Estimates in such a way as to achieve the maximum of economy with the minimum of inconvenience and waste. I have found, particularly, the military members of the Army Council, extraordinarily helpful, and I want to tender my thanks to them.
I turn to a question which has aroused great interest in the House, and which is the subject of a Motion on the Order Paper—vocational training and education in the Army. Here may I say that, as far as the Motion on the Order Paper is concerned, I have no objection to it. It asks for the development of this vocational training, and, as far as I am concerned, I am prepared to accept it, because I believe that vocational training ought to be developed. While I know the difficulties that are in the way of a great extension of vocational training, still I am quite willing to accept the Motion, and to try, as far as I can, to carry it out. A little résumé of the position may be of service. Provision has been made since the War for this systematic training of a vocational type, and up to the middle of 1927 there were two centres at which the training was given—Catterick and Hounslow. In addition, in the Commands also there was a number of classes at which vocational instruction was given. At present, there are three principal centres—Chisledon, Hounslow and Aldershot. Formerly, the capacity of the institutions was 1,000 students. That rose to 2,390 per annum, and we hope there will be a maximum of 2,950 in training during the coming financial year.
There is a hindrance to work of this description in the fact that a number of the men who were being trained for agricultural pursuits were not only of the type eminently suitable for migration to our Dominions, but were very anxious to go to the Dominions. The check on this migration has almost put a stop to work of that kind in the Army, but it is hoped that the time will come when this training will be developed to a greater degree, and that we shall be able to see that when men leave the Army—and may I say officers as well as men—they will not be the fifth wheel on the coach of civil life, but will go back to
civil life to places that are there, so that they may take up work for which they are fitted, and which will make them happier than they now are when they leave the Service and find that they come back into a world which for the moment seems to have no use for their services.
If I went into details on these matters my speech would be unduly prolonged. I must therefore hurry on to another question which has during the year created great interest in the House, the question of recruiting. During the last few months the number of recruits who have come into the Army has shown a very considerable increase. From October, 1929, to the end of September, 1930, 66,717 men offered themselves for the Army. I am sorry to say—and again it is a most regrettable fact—that 52 per cent. of these men could not be accepted owing to their physical condition. It is a regrettable thing, and I do not know if the condition is due to the War years or if there is some factor or factors even greater than the War experience, but it is a matter for profound regret that of the men who offer themselves for the Army and who evidently consider that they are physically fit—otherwise they would not offer themselves—52 per cent. are unable to be accepted because of their physical condition. With regard to the Territorials, there has been the same difficulty in getting the full supply of men to fill the frame that the Service provides. There is for the moment a shortage, but it would be wrong on my part if I said that there is anything in the nature of a crisis or anything that is serious.
The Adjutant-General's department is taking what steps are necessary to bring the Services to their full complement, but in order to make perfectly clear the position of the Government, I must say this. Many suggestions were made last year as to pressure that might be brought on unemployed men to go into the Army. The Government will not attempt at any time to exercise pressure on any person, either economic or other pressure, to get men into the Army. Men must join the Army of their own free will, and, while the Department will always bring before the people of this country the advantages that are offered to a young man, there will be nothing in
the nature of compulsion. I thought that I would make that statement at the outset in order that there may be no misunderstanding as to the position.
May I turn to another subject of a very interesting character? I turn to it because during the year I have seen many statements in newspapers, and one or two made by Members of this House, that show such a lack of knowledge of the actual situation that it would be well if I addressed a few words to the subject. I refer to the conditions of the men, the character of the men, the habits of the men, and the progress that has been made both in habits, character and education. The serious diseases that used to be prevalent in the Army have diminished in a very marked degree. While in 1913 the incidence of drunkenness was 426, in 1930 it was 107. In other words, three-quarters of the drunkenness has gone out of the Army, and I want, as one who happens to have seen something of them, to protest against the idea that seems to exist even yet that these canteens are drinking booths into which it might be inadvisable for a respectable person to go. That is not the case. The ordinary regimental establishment now is pretty well of the type of the ordinary middle-class tea room in London—just as clean, with men just as well behaved or better behaved, and in every way much better than apparently some sections of public opinion believe that it is.
The same marked improvement has taken place with regard to crime in the Army. For instance, the trials by courts-martial are going down year by year. Detention is not of the same type, but it has improved with the character of the men. The type of punishment is changing. In place of the old pack drill, better and newer methods have been and are still being devised, and in place of an exercise which was certainly violent, but questionably useful, instruction of a useful character is given. That improvement is one to be welcomed. In courts-martial, clemency is being exercised in a different way from the way in which it used to be exercised, and the general tone can be fairly said to be much better all round, and to be improving considerably year by year.
I come to a matter about which personally I am sorry that I cannot report a better state of things. I refer to barrack accommodation. Unfortunately, there is a great accumulation over many years of necessary work to be done, and I am afraid that the country will have to be in a much more prosperous condition than it is now before we can take all this work in hand at once. There are married quarters and single men's accommodation which cannot be said to be up to 1931 standard. These remnants of a past age are being removed, but the programme will have to be a gradual one. It cannot be carried out all at once, but by degrees. I hope that the programme will result, in the course of a very few years, in taking away some of the abuses—I cannot use a kinder word—that now exist. This year, for instance, huts which are existing at Borden, Black-down, Bulford and Deepcut, which were built during the South African War will be replaced by structures that will be much more up to date, and, I hope, much more comfortable and healthy for the men.
I turn now to mechanisation. Here the principle that has been laid down is still holding good. It is not to pile up material of a character which is affected day by day as inventions or science move forward, but rather to experiment until a satisfactory type has been found, and then build up the stocks that are required. That principle has been carried out in all arms of the Service. The modern Army may easily change a state of things which to many peace lovers in the past has been regrettable. Many of us have said in the past that science seems to have been devoted more to the destruction of life than to the building up of life. Those of us who have had the opportunity—and I hope that any Member who wishes to have the opportunity during the coming summer may have it by arrangement—of seeing the development in the Army, realise that there is a possibility for the future in our Dominions to turn military science round to the helping of humanity, to reverse the picture, so to speak. When one sees a tractor literally bringing a small train over rough country, over ditch and dike, one can see the possibilities in countries like Canada and Australia if the inventions that now exist are used in those Dominions. I
hope that, if Members of the House are interested, a method can be found whereby they can witness these displays of mechanisation in order to see for themselves what developments have taken place in the immediate past and are taking place as the days go on.
There is another matter, which has been frequently referred to during the year, in which I take a personal interest, and as to which I had hoped to be able to announce a concession. It concerns the ration allowance of men who are going on leave. It appears that before my term of office began—I am not laying the blame on my predecessors, I am merely stating the fact—there had been a discussion with the Treasury about certain allowances and an agreement had been arrived at whereby the ration allowance of a man who went on leave was to be at the rate of the cost to the Army of keeping him when he was in barracks. That sum was obviously less than it cost him to buy food retail. But with this diminution in ration allowance there had come certain improvements on the other side; the War Office had struck a very good bargain with the Treasury. I had hoped to replace this ration allowance at the maximum figure at which it had previously been, but I found myself, as I tell the House quite frankly, in this position: that as I was asking everybody else in the Service to exercise the strictest economy over what they want, I felt that I ought to make a sacrifice in what I considered necessary; and I regret to say that I am unable to ask the House to increase the ration allowance. The arrangement made with the Treasury, which certainly gave more than it took, will be maintained.
I come now to the question of staffing and certain misundertandings, which would be misrepresentations if they were not misunderstandings, concerning it. No less a body than the Association of British Chambers of Commerce recently issued a statement in which they said there were 3,880 persons on the staff of the War Office now, as compared with 1,636 in 1914. If that were the case, obviously it would be a very serious state of affairs indeed. I propose to devote a minute or two to showing that that is not the case, and to explaining what the position is. The figure of 3,880
given by the British Chambers of Commerce includes 1,579 persons employed in Government factories and in establishments outside the War Office who are not included in the figures quoted for 1914. Their comparison goes at the first breath when it is found that the figures they give are not comparable figures. The true figures for comparison, comparing like with like, are 1,878 in 1914 and 2,301 in 1930. These figures have already been given in Parliament. The question of staffing is always under close consideration, and not only by the Department itself, for there have been many committees of inquiry; the Public Accounts Committee has considered it and the Select Committee on Estimates has also taken an active interest in it. The reasons for the increase between 1913 and 1931 are, first, that there is an increase of 50 per cent. in the correspondence with which the War Office has to deal; secondly, the legislation that the House of Commons has passed on pensions and insurance has had a very marked effect on the amount of work done by the staff; and the increasing complexity of the War Office machine, with the changes to mechanisation, has also had its influence. To sum up in the words of the report of a committee of inquiry presided over by Sir Alan Anderson, the idea that there has been a tremendous growth of staff for the same amount of work is quite wrong.

Sir ASSHETON POWNALL: What was the date of the report?

Mr. SHAW: I cannot say the exact date when that Report was made, but I will get the information before we have finished. I am informed that the date was 1924. The report stated:
The increase in staff since 1914 is fully accounted for by the extra work which has been thrown on to the Civil Service since 1914, and the average individual output is certainly not less than in 1914.
When one considers what has happened with regard to heavy artillery, tanks, signals, mechanical transport, anti-aircraft and wireless telegraphy, and a host of other things, one can easily see that it would be quite impossible for the same staff, numerically, to deal with the work now as sufficed in 1914.

Colonel ASHLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why the correspondence has increased by 50 per cent. since 1913, with a smaller Army?

Mr. SHAW: I cannot give all the causes, but it is quite obvious that after a war there will be much more correspondence than before a war.

Colonel ASHLEY: The War ended 12 years ago.

Mr. SHAW: Yes, but even now its effects are very marked; and if the right hon. Gentleman had my experience of the cases that come to sue so frequently he would find that there is a tremendous amount of correspondence. Further, I have already given a list of seven or eight matters with regard to which it is quite obvious that there must be a tremendous increase in correspondence as compared with 1914, because in 1914 some of those services did not exist at all. Now may I turn to another matter which is of very considerable interest and importance, the filling of the ranks of the officers.

Mr. MACPHERSON: Medical officers?

Mr. SHAW: No, I am dealing with the fighting officers, if I may use that term. The filling of the ranks of the officers has become just as difficult as the filling of the ranks of the men, and we are inquiring into the whole matter. A Departmental Committee, presided over by the Under-Secretary of State, is carefully examining the matter and trying to find some way of getting the necessary number of officers. One pleasing feature as that of 616 commissions granted since the 31st March, 1930, 105 have been granted to men from the ranks. It seems quite evident to me that just as the type of man has changed so the type of officer has changed, and must change. Mathematics, physics and chemistry are becoming of more and more importance every day, and the old type of education will no longer suffice. It is to be hoped that a method will be found—quite frankly, I have not found it, although I do not yet despair of doing so—for the systematic promotion of men from the ranks into the commissioned ranks in such a way that the trained soldier, with the modern scientific knowledge required, will find his way easily from the bottom to the top, so to speak. In the past there
has been a wide gulf represented by differences rather in education and in social training than in any other things. Savoir faire and savoir vivre have been supposed to be all on one side, and not to exist on the other side. The present state of affairs is changing, and changing fairly rapidly.
I will give some figures to show that the education of the men in the ranks is improving in such a way as to give every justification for the hope that before long it will be quite an ordinary thing for men to move from the ranks into the commissioned ranks, their qualifications being based on an education quite as sound as that of the ordinary commissioned officer, and with a knowledge of the service quite equal to his. The number of men now holding certificates of education in the Army is over 90 per cent. I am speaking from memory now, and I have not the figure with me, but I think amongst the men in the ranks there are now some 14,000 who have certificates of education quite equivalent to the matriculation or school certificate standard. That shows a tremendous move forward in the education of the men.
With regard to Porton, a subject which has created a certain amount of interest in the House, again I want to be quite frank with hon. Members. Porton is an establishment which exists for the purpose of studying the best methods of defence against gas. There are experiments on animals there—there is no question about it. Wild statements have appeared in the Press as to what goes on there. May I assure the House that the stories of torture, in the sense of violent pain inflicted on animals wantonly, are quite unfounded, and that, so far as know, there is nobody concerned who would dream for a moment of inflicting unnecessary pain on any living thing. The question I had to solve for myself, and I speak for myself as being responsible for Ministerial policy, was, "If it is demonstrated to you that by an experiment on an animal you might be able to devise the means of saving an enormous amount of human suffering, are you prepared to face the experiment?" I put that question to myself, and I answer "Yes." I am satisfied that everything that can be done is done to avoid suffering, and that when any animals shows signs of great pain it is at once painlessly destroyed.
I thought I would make this broad general statement to the Committee, because hon. Members are entitled to know exactly where we stand in this matter. This is a service which is common to the Navy and the Air Force as well as to the Army, but I take my full responsibility, as Minister of War, for the continuance of this service, and will do my level best to see that it is carried on on the same lines, without inflicting avoidable pain, but with the one object of saving human suffering which might occur but for these experiments.
I come to a matter which, I think, is one that will interest the House, and that is the question of the Officers Training Corps. I have received three delegations on this question, one representing a group of the Peace Societies, a second representing the Headmasters of Public Schools, and a third representing the Peace Group in the House of Commons. I will try to sum up the arguments used respectively by these three bodies. The first deputation object altogether to boys of tender age belonging to a semi-military organisation. They say that that is contrary to the spirit of the time, contrary to our international obligations and of doubtful utility, and certainly not a method of physical training equal to the Swedish and the Danish methods; and, generally, they ask for the abolition of the junior Officers Training Corps.
The headmasters are just as firm in the position which they take up in the contrary direction. They say that they were asked by Lord Haldane to undertake this work in the public schools to meet national needs, and it was from the point of view of undertaking a national duty that they approached the work. They were of opinion that it was entirely wrong to assume that this work imbued the boys with a desire to fight in the sense of warlike fighting, and that, on the contrary, the spirit that the boys got was one of sacrifice and devotion to their country, and they were taught to stand up, to speak up, and to have more self-reliance. [Interruption.] I am trying to state accurately and fairly the arguments which were put before me. The headmasters did not look upon the work as being physical training at all, because they said that there must be physical training in addition to the Officers Train-
ing Corps, and, that it was work of a patriotic character taken on at the request of the Government itself, and they claimed that it helped the boys in every possible way, and made better men of them after they had had the training.
As to the suggestion that there is a certain amount of compulsion on the boys in the school to join the Officers Training Corps, it is admitted that there is a kind of moral compulsion. The Peace Group in the House wanted exactly what the Peace Societies wanted, that is the abolition of the Officers Training Corps. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who are they?"] They are highly respected Members of the House for whom I personally have the highest respect, although I am afraid that I shall not be able to go all the way with them. I find myself in this position. As long as the policy of the Government remains what it is I have to find the men for the Army for both the officers' ranks and the men, and I have to find them in the best possible way I can. I have gone very closely into this matter because, frankly, I confess that I hate compulsion, and the Government cannot be a party to compulsion or hold a brief for compulsion so far as the boys are concerned. But I am the Minister for War, and I am not the Minister for Education, and it is not my business to interfere in the affairs of the schools. It is also not my business to turn both blind eyes to the telescope if I see compulsion. In fact, I have to face the position, and try to find some way out of the difficulty.
The way out which I am going to propose is that the system shall be changed. I cannot recommend to the House a system of taking boys of 13 and 14 into the military training corps. The present position is that the age of recognition is 13, and the proposal I am going to make is that the age of recognition on and after the 1st of April next for any boy shall be 15. The conditions of enrolment are left to the headmasters of the schools. That will still be the case if my proposals are accepted, but no boy will be recognised in any shape or form under 15. An hon. Member has asked what would happen to boys under 15 already enrolled. Of course, I cannot interrupt existing arrangements, and obviously they will remain, but my proposal is that from 1st April this year no recognition shall be given to any boy under 15,
and that no grant shall be made to any boy under 16. If you make it older than that, there will not be time before the boys leave school to prepare themselves for the certificate of proficiency which we want in order to guarantee the payment of the grant—that is Certificate A.
The Committee will clearly understand that what I am proposing is no recognition of any kind whatever under 15, and no grant of any kind to any boy under 16. The boys of 15 will be allowed to go to camp as at the present time, but they will not be supplied with equipment until they are 16 years of age. That is what I am going to ask the House to accept with regard to the Officers Training Corps. I am aware that I am not going all the way that the Peace Group have asked for, but I believe that what I have suggested is the only and the best way of getting the officers, and of avoiding compulsion, which is repulsive to all of us. The parents of the boys of 13, 14 and under 15 who want to send them to these schools must take their own share of the burden and be responsible, and I cannot be responsible for them as Minister for War. I shall have nothing to do with the boys in those years, and the parents must look after them themselves.
I now come to the really important point of the Government's policy. I intend for a few minutes to speak about our general policy, and to explain why the Government still propose to maintain the forces at their present level. If anyone will examine closely what has been done in this country during the last 10 or 11 years in the shape of reductions in the Army, and compare it with the position in other countries, there can be no doubt that they must conclude that the policy of unilateral disarmament has not achieved its object. It is impossible to examine the figures and, looking facts in the face, to conclude that any foreign country has followed the example set by this country. I do not want to make invidious distinctions, but I ask anybody who takes an interest in the question of Disarmament to note carefully the conditions of affairs as shown in the League of Nations books on the subject, and then I think there can be no question at all that the enormous reductions which have obtained in this country have not been
reproduced in other countries. Disarmament in this country, instead of being a lead to foreign nations, has not led to that desirable result. Therefore, it is impossible in the circumstances for me to recommend to the Government any further unilateral disarmament because the figures are against it, experience is against it, and, in my opinion, the prospects of the future are against it. I do not want to go into a long argument to demonstrate that position, but the House will see what I mean when I say that the chances of disarmament are against unilateral disarmament as a policy.
The Government will take a leading part and make actual proposals for a diminution of land forces. We have done everything that we can to bring about the day when, by international agreement, armaments will be reduced all over the world. All that we shall continue to do, but at the present moment it is absolutely impossible for us to propose any further diminution in the numbers. That is why the numbers which are proposed in these Estimates remain as they were last year. I repeat that there are certain things the Government will not do. They will not attempt compulsion; they will not attempt in any way any form of compulsion that will lead to a militarised army. At the same time, they will not propose any further unilateral disarmament, but will pursue the method of inducing other nations to come to an agreement which will allow this country and other countries to remove from their shoulders the military burdens which they now bear.

5.0 p.m.

Major TRYON: I hope, as an old friend of the late Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, I may be allowed to thank the Secretary of State for War most sincerely for his references to him; and may I, in the presence of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson), under whom I had the honour to serve at the Ministry of Pensions, say that not the least of that Minister's achievements was the work which he did for the Army in making efficient that great and difficult task which the Ministry of Pensions is carrying on to-day? At that Ministry we have, I believe, got
pensions out of party politics, and the advent of the Labour Government has meant no change in policy. I hope the day may come when the attitude of parties in this House towards the Army will be the same, and that all parties will realise what we owe to those fellow citizens who undertake for us the defence of our country.
With regard to the question of barracks and married quarters, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, I am told that some of the married quarters, particularly in regard to sanitary arrangements, are extraordinarily bad, and the Secretary of State for War has admitted that there are abuses, but sympathy is not so much good as some practical effort, and as far as I read the Estimates, the right hon. Gentleman will be spending this year less and not more on that particular Vote. I do not want to put it unkindly, but a little more expenditure would have been more use than kindly references to abuses. In view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman is short of recruits, if there is so much unemployment in the country, I should have thought that it would have been a very good way, by giving a chance to some of the unemployed by building work, to remedy the abuses which admittedly exist in connection with our married quarters and the housing of our troops.
I should like also to say how strongly I support the right hon. Gentleman's reference to the work which is going on at Porton. People are sometimes extraordinarily inhuman, and I can conceive of no more cruel thing than to subject the Army and the civil population of this country to untold suffering from gas in time of war because of some sympathetic reference to one or two animals which, with every possible effort to preserve mercy and avoid suffering, undergo experiments at that place. It seems to me that the immense human sufferings that may be avoided utterly outweigh any efforts that have to be made at that place.
I do not think he meant anything, but I think the right hon. Gentleman was not altogether just in suggesting that the officers of the Army who led our battalions and brigades in the late War were not educated as they ought to be.

Mr. SHAW: If I said anything so clumsily as to convey that impression, let me at once take away that impress-
sion. What I intended to say was that the methods were changing so much, that mechanics, chemistry and physics were taking so much larger a place than formerly, that the type of education was changing.

Major TRYON: None the less, I have heard it constantly asserted that one of the difficulties of our Army in the late War was that our officers were insufficiently well educated, and I say that at the date when the majority of the officers who led our troops in the late War entered the Army, the education included fairly high mathematics and in some cases very high algebra, and that competition was so great that 600, 700, or 800 people competed and only 100 got through. Therefore, I say that, measured by intellectual tests, the standard then was very much higher than the standard now, because there was so much more competition. It is not the case that mathematical subjects were ignored in those days; they were given a great many marks and were treated as of considerable importance.
On the main issue, I wish to make it clear that I am supporting the Secretary of State for War in his request that the Army should be maintained at its present strength and that the Vote for which he is asking should be granted. We all know that the opposition to this Vote comes, not from these benches, but from the benches behind him, and we have noted that the only really enthusiastic cheers which have come from hon. Members opposite throughout the whole of the Army Debate were the cheers at the suggestion that our young men should not be liable to get any military ideas at school. If hon. Members opposite say that, what right have the Government to come here and ask for a Vote for the Army, if they think it is wrong to have an Army? If we think it wrong that this country should be defended, what right have we to ask for people to go and defend us unless we respect the Army which defends us? I can conceive of nothing more discreditable than that the nation should obtain its safety through the protection which the Army and the Navy give it, and yet that people should not respect those who serve in the Army, perfectly honourably.
I believe that this Vote is absolutely necessary, and I am going to support it
by a rather unusual argument, which I put particularly to those hon. Members opposite who differ from me and from the Secretary of State for War. Those who know the record of the three right hon. Gentlemen who have been mainly concerned, I believe, in the responsibility for these Estimates must remember the attitude of the present Prime Minister with reference to war and to armaments—I am not going to be in any way critical in my observations—they must remember the attitude towards armaments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and they must remember the feeling in the past of the present Secretary of State for War. I say that if those three men think we need an Army of this size, if those three men think that the present expenditure is justified, that ought to justify it also to their supporters, who know what views they have held in the past with reference to armaments.

Mr. TINKER: I hope the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is not including all Members on this side as being against the Vote.

Major TRYON: No, and may I say, in response to the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker), that I am not by any means saying he is against the Vote. Indeed, if I may digress for a minute, I should like to thank him for the assistance which he gave me at the Ministry of Pensions when he helped us there in the past. I think the attitude with regard to the Army may well be copied from the attitude of the First Lord of the Admiralty with reference to the Navy. Speaking in Newcastle the other day, that right hon. Gentleman said:
You find a steady decline in our naval expenditure and a steady rise in that of almost every other country, and you begin to ask whether it is a sane policy.
I think that argument applies to the Army as well, and I think the Secretary of State for War himself applied it to some extent. In ascertaining whether this is the right Vote and whether we have an Army of the right size, we must look at the other nations and their armies, and I noticed in the latter part of his speech a recognition by the Secretary of State of the international
dangers. Those of us on this side who took part in the last General Election will remember that if any Conservative dared to suggest from a platform that we might still want a Navy and an Army after the War, people attacked him and said, "You must want a war if you want to have an Army." What we said to our own detriment on the platform is practically the same as has been said by the Secretary of State for War from the Treasury Bench to-day. But it was not said at the General Election, and there were lots of people who got votes then by the suggestion that all these armaments would be swept away by the Labour party and who now know that the Labour party will not do it, and the Labour party is quite right.

Mr. CARTER: I think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is dreaming.

Major TRYON: I am not dreaming. I remember the votes which were got by talk about the Optional Clause, and I know that many Conservatives lost votes because they held up the defence of the country as one of the duties of a Government. We know now that what we said at that election is what the Secretary of State for War is beginning to say to-day.
If we are to judge the size of our Navy by that of other navies, the same principle should apply to the Army, and I wish to call attention to the fact, without mentioning any particular names, that there are in Western Europe great nations with large populations which still enrol an enormous number of men in their ranks by conscription. But that is not the end of it. Owing to our oversea duties and our garrisons in India and elsewhere, and owing to our voluntary service, we have a very small reserve compared with the reserves in other countries. I have looked at the figures in the Estimates, and I see that, counting India, we have a smaller reserve than our standing Army; that is to say, for every man now serving in the Army there is not as much as one other man to reinforce him if war should come, but in those already large armies on the Continent, where there is a service of perhaps only one year or a year and a half, there is, beyond that, a liability to military service extending up to the point
in a man's age when he ceases to be really useful for military purposes. Therefore, on the Continent, for every man in a standing army now, there may be 15 or 20 other men who would reinforce him should a war come; and if there is going to be any question of disarmament, we ought to accept the Secretary of States point of view, which is, if I am not misrepresenting him, that disarmament must be based on equal sacrifice and that we cannot reduce our Army while these immense armies exist on the Continent.
There is a subject with which I am not so familiar as some, but I have not heard any reference from the benches opposite about the enormous armies of Russia. We have heard a good deal about armies being capitalistic adventures, but I do not gather that the army in Russia is a capitalistic affair. It is a Socialist affair, and I should very much like to have some information from the Government, at the end of the Debate, as to what the size of that army is believed to be and whether they do not use gas and all the other most terrible engines of modern warfare.
There is another test by which we may compare the size of our Army. When we were discussing the Navy, some of us thought the number of cruisers that we ought to have should, to some extent, be regulated by the extent of the oceans and the enormous trade routes which they have to cover. Applying that argument, as an alternative measure, to the size of our Army, I would suggest that our Army is extraordinarily small, considering its enormous liabilities in territory and in duties. Apart from India, we have troops in China; we have troops in Palestine, at the request of the League of Nations; we have troops in Egypt; and, taking its duties and regarding the Army rather as an armed police force than as an Army simply for the defence of this country, I say that there is no Army that has ever undertaken so large a task with so few men.
We hear that there are difficulties in recruiting. Can you wonder that there are? What has been the attitude of hon. Members opposite towards recruiting? Here you have a Labour Government, which has now learned a great deal that some other Governments have known for a long time, which is beginning to feel that we must have an Army and recruits
—a Labour Government which has only in January been making enormous efforts to raise recruits somehow for the Army, because the Labour Government honestly think we want those troops. But what is their attitude? "We must not let a boy go into a Cadet Corps till he is 15, because he might pick up some idea possibly of entering the Army after he has left school." Apparently, there is not so much harm in a military instinct developing at 15, but it must not develop at 14. If they think it is wrong to have military instincts and to join the Army, let them say so; and nobody who thinks that soldiering is wrong has a right to be Secretary of State for War.
I say that recruiting for the Army is directly discouraged throughout the country by large numbers of speeches made by the Labour party, and those political efforts are reinforced, and have been sadly reinforced in the last few months, by a number of films and cinemas misrepresenting our troops. I saw a cinema the other day in which, for the sake of gain, the whole of fighting was ridiculed. Books have been written, which bring in profit, to which as a rule the Labour party object; people make large sums of money by books discouraging everybody from attempting to defend their country. Not only so, but plays are being put on in which British officers and men are not represented in a light honourable to them or fair to the men who saved us in the late War. I do not say that the Labour party can stop that, but I do say that, If the Labour Government want recruits, it is up to the members of the Labour party to help their Government to get recruits, and not to suggest that there is something entirely wrong in serving in the Army—[An HON. MEMBER: "Journey's End."] What would he the end of the journey if our Army had been beaten?
There is another point, and that is as to the attitude of hon. Members opposite with reference to military tournaments and tattoos. There is no disputing the fact that there is a strong objection to military tattoos on the part of a number of people on the Labour benches—[Interruption]. Then those hon. Members ought to be satisfied with the display that was given at Tidworth, because, although there was the battle of Hastings, it was a battle in which our side
were beaten, and we had no Navy; and, from inquiries that I have made, I gather that at the Aldershot tattoo this year there will be a battle in which the defenders of this country again are to be beaten. I do not say that battles ought to be represented at tattoos, but I do say that, if they are represented, they need not be battles in which the British Army is always beaten.
Furthermore, I believe that these tattoos bring an enormous number of people into touch with the spirit of devotion, of sacrifice, and discipline which pervades the Army, and that those people who go to these tattoos realise something of what the whole nation—I speak from the point of view of a civilian—owes to those who defend us. At all events, it is not for a party which at this moment is endeavouring to get more recruits for the Army to run down military service as though it were something wrong, to endeavour to stop tattoos, and generally speaking to discourage recruiting, because we now know from the Labour Government that they do want more recruits, and that they consider it right, at all events after the age of 15, to have some sympathy with the Forces of the country.
There are certain points reference to which should not be omitted. The first is the shortage of men. On that point I believe a great deal has been done, particularly in connection with training and opportunities of work for men on returning from the Army to civil life. I know, for instance, that men are released at once towards the end of their time if they can get a job, and I know that officers in the Army go round and find out whether their men are looking out for jobs and are getting jobs. A great deal of trouble is taken in the Army to help men on their return to civil life. With reference to officers, I think that all this pacifist feeling to which I have been referring has done something to discourage the supply of officers. I think that that will pass away, but at the same time the financial position of a young officer on first joining the Army is an extraordinarily difficult one. I cannot see that the Secretary of State for War has made any very material contribution towards that problem. There used to be a war-cry in the
days of the coal strike, "Not a penny off the pay," but I understand that in the case of young officers the Secretary of State for War has just taken 2d. a day off their pay, which does not seem to me to be much of a contribution towards getting recruits in the ranks of the officers of the Army. With regard to medical officers, I believe that some of my hon. Friends, who have more knowledge and experience of this matter than I have, will speak later, but it is a great pity that we, who so carefully select our recruits and enlist the pick of the healthiest people in the country, should not provide them with the best possible medical attention while they are in the Army. There is a grave shortage, and the pressure is very heavy, and I am glad to see that the Secretary of State for War views that problem with grave concern.
There are one or two points on which I should like to ask questions. I wonder whether it is not the case—I am not saying that it is, but I think the matter is worth examining—that there are too many moves in the Army. I see that no less than £444,000 is being spent on moves. It is obvious that men have to come back from abroad, and that battalions have to go out, but there is an enormous amount of moving done from station to station within this country, to the greatest possible inconvenience of married men and officers in the battalions and regiments concerned, and I think it is worth inquiring whether it is absolutely necessary to have such constant changes from place to place. With regard to the form of this particular Estimate, I hope that the Secretary of State for War will allow me respectfully to say that these pink notes, if I may so describe them, are of the greatest possible assistance to everyone who reads the Estimates, and they are in some cases of great historical value. They give explanations as to the training, changes and disposition of the troops, which are extraordinarily clearly written, and, if I may, I should like to thank the right hon. Gentleman and those who prepared them for this which is one of the most valuable additions to the Estimate.
Finally, I should like to say that I think that all the Regular Army now serving has the greatest respect for the work which is being done by the Terri-
torial Force. I hope that the Secretary of State for War will not be shocked when I say that I myself went to a military tournament in my constituency, where there were some real guns and a number of horses jumping over small hurdles. I do not think it had a very bad effect on my electorate. At that display, which was the display of the Territorial Force Artillery, I was sitting next to an artillery officer, who had spent his whole life in the artillery and had served throughout the War from beginning to end in the artillery. Speaking to me privately—and he was perfectly unbiased—he was loud in his praises of the efficiency, keenness and zeal of the Territorial Force whom we had the honour of seeing in my constituency at a tournament.
I do think that this House and the country ought to view the Army and service in it, not as though it were something to be ashamed of, but as though the Army was a thing to which we owed a great debt. Civilians in this country, who are protected in time of war and who are safer in time of peace because we have an Army, should not regard military service as something which is wrong, but as something which is highly honourable and should be respected, and the contribution that civilians can make to the Army is, by every means in their power, to ensure for these gallant men proper treatment and good conditions, and, above all, we ought to see that by every means in our power we preserve peace throughout the world.

Mr. MACPHERSON: I do not propose to follow my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brighton (Major Tryon) into the various points to which he has alluded in such vigorous and forcible style, but I should like, if I may, to deal with one or two points in the speech of the Secretary of State for War which have not been dealt with by my right hon. and gallant Friend. I will say a word or two first upon what the Secretary of State, at the end of his speech, called the general policy. Nobody realises more than I do the extremely difficult situation in which a Secretary of State for War in a Labour Government finds himself. The problem with which he is faced is the legitimate problem of trying to combine adequate defence with the spirit—the prevailing
spirit, I am glad to say—of disarmament. I shall have many criticisms to make on matters of detail, but I must frankly confess that my right hon. Friend appeared to me to have adequately judged that problem, and to have dealt with it fairly and squarely and with admirable courage.
He went on to say that the numbers in the Army are as low as in his estimation they can be. That is perfectly true. I think, myself, that at the present time, so long as there is still a spirit of war abroad in the world, and so long as it is necessary for this little island of ours to be defended, the numbers in the Army are down to the bone. My right hon. Friend made one very significant remark which weighed with me very considerably, and that was that our unilateral disarmament has not helped disarmament as a whole. No belligerent country has done so much in the realm of disarmament as this country has done. It was the first to abolish conscription; it has cut down in every possible way; it has attempted, in every one of its efforts since the War in dealing with the Army, to give a lead to other countries. But you can do too much of that, and I am very glad that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has called a halt and until he finds out, if he remains in office, that there is not only unilateral disarmament but general disarmament, he cannot afford to come down to the House of Commons and ask for smaller numbers in the British Army.
Let me deal with one or two points which he made. First of all, let me associate myself with my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brighton and with the Secretary of State for War in their remarks about the late Sir Laming Worthington-Evans. I had, naturally, known him personally for a great many years, and with everything that has been said, both from the Government Bench and from the Opposition Bench, I whole-heartedly associate myself. I am not going to deal with the first point which was made by my right hon. Friend with regard to vocational training, because I understand that one of my hon. Friends behind me has an Amendment dealing with that subject. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State says that he agrees with that Amendment. As being in some way asso-
ciated with the institution of vocational training in the Army, I was very glad indeed to hear the good things which the Secretary of State had to say in connection with the very important problem of the resettlement of the fighting soldier in civil life. The numbers at present under training are not very high. In other days I thought that they would be very much higher, but I am glad to see that there is an increase, and I hope that, so long as the Secretary of State for War is in his present office, he will continue to encourage a thing which is destined to be of enormous benefit to those who are serving in the Army, and, ultimately, to the civil and industrial life of the country.
No one can have read, in the White Paper which my right hon. Friend circulated, the paragraph dealing with recruiting, without feeling some disquietude. There may be some Members in this House who say they do not want any more recruits, but the fact remains that, human nature being as it is, and world conditions being as they are, we do require recruits to keep up the standard of the Army. I cannot help thinking that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been as responsible, individually, as anyone for the fact that recruiting is not as good as it might be. It is not for me to lecture anybody, but, if I had been Secretary of State for War, I should have felt it incumbent upon me, if I was informed by my advisers that certain recruits were necessary, to do my level best by a recruiting campaign to strengthen their hands; but I know of no single instance in which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War ever helped in a recruiting campaign, though I may be wrong. I venture to think, however, that it was his duty—his public duty—to help to bring the Army up to the standard which he himself feels that it ought to reach at the present moment.
I am very glad that there is no pressure or compulsion exercised upon individuals, whether they are unemployed or not. I do not think a soldier is ever at his best when he is conscripted or compelled to fight, whether by the law of the land or by economic circumstances. If in a voluntary Army you want to get recruits, you have to attract them. If
you have a conscripted Army, you may dress them in sackcloth and ashes. The law will see that they appear on the parade ground. But, if you are dealing with a voluntary Army, you have to make plain to prospective recruits what inducements you are holding out. You have to appeal to sentiment and tradition, and you have to point out that nowadays the old soldier need nut necessarily be a man drawing 6d. or 7d. a day, and very often tattered, war weary and helpless at the street corners. You can point out to-day that by your vocational training, by the pocket money that he gets, by the greatly improved conditions, the allowances and the uniform, and with a good character and good prospects in life, the conditions are such that the Army is one of the finest employments.
Naturally, because of the better conditions, and because of the high standard that you exact, a man's chances of employment in civil life are very much better than ever they were before. It is no longer the case that, when a boy enlists, he does it because of some moral delinquency. You find the finest types of men enlisting to-day. It is a sad comment upon recruiting to hear that 52 per cent. of those who volunteer actually belong to a C.3 population. It is a tragedy. On the other hand, it is consoling to hear, and the world should know about it, that the character of the British Army on the whole was never higher than to-day. The statistics that the right hon. Gentleman gave on the point were exceedingly valuable and far-reaching in their influence. I have never heard these attacks on the canteens that have been alluded to. They are very admirable institutions which have done very much to alleviate and ameliorate the conditions of the private soldier. What I can say about character I can say about crime. I do not believe there is an Army in the world with less crime than the British Army. I was glad to hear what the right hon. Gentleman said about the absence of the old rigidity and rigour of the prison discipline. I take a certain amount of credit to myself that at the War Office I took an active part in abolishing the old prison life, and you have now not prison in the Army but detention barracks. The old chains that one saw lying about are all abolished.
So far as it was possible to deal reasonably and, at the same time, adequately and effectively with crime, I believe a new and a much more generous spirit has entered into that branch of discipline.
We are accustomed, when discussing civil questions, to pay a great deal of attention to housing problems. Some of us believe that the house should be the home, and that the home should be the real basis and foundation of our country. I was astonished, when reading the paragraph dealing with what are called the Army services, to see how utterly inadequate the barrack accommodation is for the troops of to-day. I am not sure whether my facts are accurate or not, but I should not be at all surprised if it is due to the slum conditions that are obtaining in the barracks of to-day that you had, for example, that epidemic of spotted fever at Aldershot. We are told that, because of financial stringency, the Secretary of State can only dole out a few pounds this year, indeed less than last year, and at the same time he says the conditions are not only antiquated, because some belong to pre-South African war days, but there is a danger to the health and discipline of the troops. If it were possible, I should try to compel the right hon. Gentleman to divert some of the money that is at his disposal towards an object of that kind, rather than to an object which in the course of a day or two may be a thing of the past. He has told us that, with the advance of science and mechanisation, some of the implements of the Army may be out of date. The advance of science is so marvellous that we cannot possibly have anything more than in the experimental stage. It would be wise to divert some money which is very likely being misspent in that direction to an object of this kind which will do so much for the wellbeing of the soldier now and after he has left the Army.
I do not cavil at the extent of the staff in the War Office. I think the right hon. Gentleman justified the numbers that are being employed. There is nothing that is more often commented on with greater ignorance than the amount of staff that must be employed in certain Government Departments, but the committee upon which the right hon. Gentleman is relying finished its work seven years ago.
Surely, in seven years there must have been some chance of economy in the matter of staff, and there seems to be no sign of economy. I am quite willing to take his word and to believe that there is an enormous amount of correspondence and an enormous increase in various directions; at the same time, I should like him to assure the House that he is paying very careful attention to the question of the numbers of that staff.
Another point that the right hon. Gentleman viewed with very great gravity was the filling up of the ranks of officers. He expressed some astonishment that they were depleted. We must remember that we had a stage, after the War, when fathers themselves who had to endure the horrible rigours and realities of the War, had to consider whether they should put their sons into a profession of this kind. That has as much to do with depletion as anything. But there is another ground, in my judgment, and that is that for a long time there was a feeling that the Army was no longer the profession, with promotion and preferment, that it was before the War. These two causes, in my judgment, have as much to do with the depletion of the officers' ranks as any, but I am delighted to hear that there is such a high percentage now of commissions given to men from the ranks. If anything was proved in the late War, it was that it was not absolutely necessary for a man to have spent years in barracks before he became qualified to be a commissioned officer. There are men in the Army, as in other professions, who pick up their work, whether it is a brief or anything else, as quickly in a few months or hours, as the case may be, as another man may do in years. The experience of the Great War as a whole was that the finest type of officer could always be got from the non-commissioned ranks. I am very glad that so many men have got commissions from the ranks, and I hope the Secretary of State will make it possible for even more to get commissions by making it easier for them in the Military Academy, or wherever they go for their ultimate training.
I thought the right hon. Gentleman was going to deal with another branch of officers, the Royal Army Medical Corps. One or two of my colleagues who have had war experience can speak on this
subject with much greater authority than I can, but I know a great deal about the Royal Army Medical Corps, and what I have been reading recently about its condition is extraordinary. I cannot understand how a corps which has such a fine reputation, and which was so anxiously sought after as a profession before the War, should become almost the Cinderella of the profession. I am told there is no longer any competition for entering into that service, that the vacancies are advertised, about 50 a year, and that you cannot get sufficient applications for them, that instead of 25 or 50, there are only seven or eight. That is an extraordinary state of affairs, and there must be some reason for it. I am told that, out of 600 officers, 500 are majors and 100 subalterns, and the majors have to do mostly subalterns' work. That is a condition of affairs that is unthinkable. Surely, something must be done, because, if you are going to look after the health of the Army, you cannot have a discontented and chaotic corps of this kind. I am told there is no chance of promotion, there are miserable pensions and allowances and there are no special grants for specialised service. The State cannot allow it to be in that chaotic state without demanding from the Minister why it should be the case and what attempt he is going to make to improve it.
I have no doubt that a great deal of this discussion will turn upon the Officers Training Corps. I can quite see the point of view of those who wholeheartedly belong to the peace party. It is a logical point of view, but I do not see eye to eye with them. If it had not been for the Officers Training Corps and the Territorials in the Great War, I do not know where the British Army would have been. These were the two great forces which, in my judgment, from the civilian point of view, had such an enormous effect upon the whole of the campaign. I cannot enter at this stage into the ethics of the question as to whether it is right or wrong, or whether it is militaristic or not, but I can say that I have never seen any militaristic desire intensified by the Officers Training Corps. I am glad that my right hon. Friend has the courage, in any case, to try and find a middle way. I cannot see the logic of allowing recognition to a boy of 15, with no arms or
equipment, and of giving a grant to a boy of 16, with arms and equipment. If you are sending a boy of 16 to camp, why camouflage the situation by saying that he cannot have equipment? What is he going to do? If you took the line of preventing him from going to camp I could understand the position, but I cannot understand why you should send a boy of 15 and a boy of 16 to the same camp and that one boy, who probably may be a day older than the other boy, should be allowed to have equipment and the other should not be allowed to have equipment.
The whole thing is ridiculous. I hope, seeing that the right hon. Gentleman has gone the length he has, that he really will not rest by allowing a blot like that to remain. He should take his courage in both hands and do the right thing, either get rid of it altogether—[An HON. MEMBER: "Get rid of it!"] Naturally, I do not agree with that, but if you are going to do anything, do it properly. I hope that before the Debate is over we shall be told that both the boy of 15 and the boy of 16 shall be allowed to have equipment. Indeed, I know there are many boys of 15 who are far more capable of carrying equipment than boys of 16. It is true that boys of 12, 13 and 14 may not have reached the stage when they should be asked to do the strenuous work which training demands, but one cannot forget that General Wolfe commenced at 13½, and that he conquered Canada when 31. I know that I shall be told that, of course, conditions are different. I am grateful even for the compromise of the right hon. Gentleman. I hope that he will bear in mind what I have said, and which, I should think, is the view of almost every Member of the House, that he should not stand on a little matter of that kind in regard to whether a boy of 15 should have equipment or not.
I have endeavoured, as well as I can, to go over the various points which suggest themselves to my mind, and I will conclude by saying that I support the Vote, and that my colleagues behind me support the Vote. A good many of them do not take the same view as I do with regard to the Officers Training Corps, but we intend to support the Vote to-night. Taking into consideration all the circumstances with which my right hon. Friend is faced, I say, as I said at the beginning, that I think he came to
a fair, adequate and courageous compromise, in view of the opinions which are known to be held by a great many Members on his side of the House.

Dr. HASTINGS: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) will excuse me if I do not follow him very fully in what he has just said. I think that I can explain the smallness of the number of the doctors who are joining the Royal Army Medical Corps. There are two reasons, as I see it. The first is the lack of professional interest because, fortunately, to-day the Army is a very healthy body, but I think that an even stronger reason which prevents so many doctors joining the Royal Army Medical Corps is the fact that the remuneration is small. We have now a panel service, and by putting up a plate in any industrial area a doctor, as a rule, can within a year or two make a better salary than he can obtain in the Army. Personally, I think that the solution of these difficulties will only be found when the medical services of the three fighting forces, possibly even the medical services of other Government Departments as well, are joined together to make one larger body. It seems to me to be quite unreasonable that there should be three separate medical services in the combatant Departments, and I think that it may possibly be thought desirable to fuse the medical services of other departments of State as well.
I should like to deal mainly to-day with the question of the Officers Training Corps, and if I am in order I should like, first of all, to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War a question about the Estimates for them. In the Estimates for next year the amount put down to the Officers Training Corps is some £400 more than that for last year. This seems a little strange, seeing that the personnel of the Officers Training Corps has, according to the figures given in this year's Estimates been decreased by well over 7,000. I can hardly understand why if there is a decrease in personnel more money should be required. When I heard the right hon. Gentleman's announcement about the Officers Training Corps, I was greatly disappointed. In the Debate on the Army Estimates last year the Financial Secretary to the War Office said:
More and more we wish to prevent the mind of the child from being destroyed by military training."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th March, 1930; cols. 137–8, Vol. 237.]
The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War said:
The boy attending a public school is certainly not too young to join an Officers Training Corps at an age which has been considered high enough for a working class boy to join the ranks."—[0FFICAL REPORT, 24th March, 1930; col. 86, Vol. 237.]
The age at which a working-class boy joins the ranks is 18. The right hon. Gentleman himself, by the abolition of the Cadet Corps last year, arranged matters so that a boy could not have military training except in special circumstances under the age of 18. I accept this statement of his that the middle-class boy, that is the boy in the public school, should not receive military training at a lower age than 18, because that is what is implied. Now, apparently, he has changed his mind and he is going to allow a boy to begin to receive military training at the age of 15, although there can be no doubt at all that the working-class boy at 15 is, generally speaking, much more mature than the boy in the public school at this age. The working-class boy, for good or evil, leaves school at 14. He goes to work or he becomes unemployed, but at the age of 15 or 16 he has much greater knowledge of the world, unfortunately, than the boy who is sheltered in a public school. Therefore, it is far from desirable to let these boys of 15 commence their military training in a public school or other Officers Training Corps. After all, I do not think that what the right hon. Gentleman has given us—and we are certainly grateful for it—accounts for very much, because if I read the Regulations aright, I find that no grant is to be obtained for boys under 16 in a rate-aided school. What the right hon. Gentleman is now doing is to put the public schools on to the same level as the rate-aided schools, and I do not see that he is doing very much more.
There is another point in connection with this matter to which I should like to refer. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite accuse those of us who are sitting on this side of the House of being in favour of class legislation, and by this they mean that the working class people are treated, by legislation and administration, more favourably than
any other class. I have seen no evidence of it so far, but I see clear evidence today, because the working class boy up to 18 is free from compulsory military training, whereas the middle and upper class boy in the public schools is not free from it. It seems to me to be quite wrong in these days of freedom when we believe in a free Army, an Army which a person can enter or not as he chooses—and the right hon. Gentleman himself has said to-day that "men must join the Army of their own free will"—to spend public money on the compulsory military training of boys at such a tender age.
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I would point out to the House that this training is, in fact, compulsory. I wanted to find a school for a boy of mine, and knowing that it is necessary to put boys names down early, I sent for the prospectuses of certain schools, and I have pages from them in my hand. The Epsom Medical Benevolent College, is a college to which certain boys are really compelled to go because their fathers were doctors and their mothers have become widows and are badly off and cannot very well choose a school. They have to accept places there. I read in the prospectus of that college that
Every boy of the requisite age who is not exempt on medical grounds is expected to join, and does so.
I read similar statements in the prospectuses relating to Downside School, Bath. Birkenhead School and other schools. It is a very undesirable thing, indeed, to make military training compulsory. I think that it is bad for the boys who are forced to be trained as soldiers. It is equally bad for the boys who stand out. No boy likes to be peculiar. It is bad for the boy to be thought peculiar. It results in one of two things; either he gets the idea that he is inferior to his fellows and he develops an inferiority complex, or, what is worse, he becomes a pharisaical little prig.

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: The hon. Member mentioned the name of one school with which I happen to be personally acquainted, and which my two sons attend. They are neither of them members of the Officers Training Corps. There is not the slightest compulsion exercised. If the other cases that the
hon. Member is putting up are based on no better evidence than that particular case, he has no case to set up.

Dr. HASTINGS: What is the name of the school?

Mr. WHITE: Birkenhead school.

Dr. HASTINGS: May I read the prospectus of Birkenhead School?

Mr. WHITE: Before the hon. Member reads it, may I say that I am one of the Governors, and perhaps he will accept from me the assurance that there is no compulsion whatsoever.

Dr. HASTINGS: Perhaps I may read the prospectus of Birkenhead School. Here is the statement:
All boys over 14 years of age who are medically fit are expected to join the Officers Training Corps.

Mr. WHITE: That is not compulsion.

An HON. MEMBER: Change the wording of the prospectus.

Dr. HASTINGS: I can only take what is said in the prospectus. My point was, that if pressure is exerted, and there is pressure, upon boys to join the Officers Training Corps—I do not say that they all join—it is very bad for the boys who do not join. That was the main point of my argument.

Mr. WHITE: My sole object in rising was to assure the hon. Member that in this particular ease the circumstances which he is trying to make out, do not apply.

Dr. HASTINGS: I accept the hon. Member's statement fully, and I am very glad to learn that there is, at any rate, one school which is very much better than its prospectus.
It is difficult for me to understand the point of view of the headmasters in desiring so strongly, as the Secretary of State for War has shown that they do, the continuance of the Officers Training Corps. I have not the slightest doubt that a great many of them—

Mr. SHAW: The hon. Member must not put words into my mouth. I never used an expression of that kind. I said that the headmasters stated that they undertook this work at the request of Lord Haldane as a patriotic duty.

Dr. HASTINGS: I am very much obliged to my right hon. Friend for correcting me. I accept what he says, but I read into his statement that the headmasters accepted the duty placed upon them, gladly. If I am wrong, I am very glad that I am wrong. I am trying to explain the reasons why they do accept that duty. No doubt some of them think that there is useful training to be obtained in these corps, but I cannot help feeling that there are other reasons, and that some of them think that they are getting a cheap advertisement for their school at the expense of the War Office, that the corps give them an excuse for collecting the school together and showing to the world what a fine lot of boys they have got. Another reason may prompt them. They are getting from the War Office facilities for their corps. They are occupying the time of the school at the expense of the parents and the War Office and at comparatively little expense to themselves and the school.
No doubt the Secretary of State for War can give very strong reasons, military reasons, for the continuance of the Officers Training Corps, but I cannot think that a boy who enjoys strutting about in military uniform is necessarily going to make the best officer. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that a great deal of use is made in the Army of scientific discoveries, and I cannot help feeling that boys trained in physics and chemistry, and possibly bacteriology and other sciences, as well as mathematics, are going to be of the most use to the Army in the future. If there has to be a war, we all know that it will be fought very differently from the last War. We know that in the last War, some of the men who did most to help us to win the War were men of science who, for instance, by making use of physics and the laws of transmission of sound, enabled us to spot and to destroy the guns of the opposing Army. I cannot help feeling that leadership, if we need it, and I am sure that we do, is not going to be developed in the best way merely by boys training smaller boys in drill, with the whole of the authority and traditions of the school as well as the War Office behind them. I feel that the qualities of true leadership are going to be developed much better in games and
in other free associations where the moral qualities and the moral calibre of the boys can be shown.
I will not deal with the advantages and disadvantages of such physical and moral training as can be obtained in these corps, but I would say that, in my opinion, the main objection to the Officers Training Corps is that it gives the boy an entirely wrong idea of what war really is. The members of an Officers Training Corps have a very good time. They go to inspect guns and different implements of war, mechanical instruments in which boys are keenly interested, and they go to camp, which, of course, is an excellent thing for them. They get the idea that war is a kind of glorified picnic. Those of us who knew anything of the last War know that it is a very different thing from that. If we make military training an essential part of eduction, the boys who obtain such education are very likely, subconsciously, to assume that war is inevitable, and that is an impression which a great many of us desire that people should not get.

Sir HERBERT NIELD: One would almost ask oneself after listening to the last speaker, whether he has ever been guilty of presenting his young boys with a box of soldiers. [Interruption.] It will come to that presently. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I wish the cheers of hon. Members opposite could be heard throughout the world. Fancy the ridiculous absurdity of depriving a child of a box of soldiers, which may be wooden soldiers, because it is going to inculcate the desire for war! It is about as absurd a thing as anything I have heard in this House, and I have heard a great many absurd things. I have been long enough here to know this House in very different circumstances, and I never thought that we should get to such a ridiculous state that we should hear such arguments as are put forward from time to time from the benches opposite. Now we know where we are, and we know that the Peace Group, as it is called in this House, are far more likely to find that their advocacy of unilateral disarmament of this country will, as regards foreign nations, place them in the position described by the Psalmist in the words:
I labour for peace, but when I speak unto them thereof: they make them ready to battle.
Our helplessness would in spite of treaties, as we saw in August, 1914, be our adversaries' opportunity and we should learn to our cost the price of our surrender. I saw in the "Morning Post" a letter of such a character—a letter in which the hon. Member for North Bristol (Mr. Ayles) is specifically mentioned—that it must be inquired into.

Mr. AYLES: May I say, without any hesitation, that that letter, which refers to a, speech that I made some three or four years ago, is a whole farrago of untruths. There is not a scintilla of truth in it.

Sir H. NIELD: It is in the "Morning Post."

Mr. AYLES: "Morning Post" morality!

Sir H. NIELD: I am very glad to hear the hon. Member's statement. The letter comes from a lady. [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite laugh. We seem to be getting into the realm of absurdity again. Why should not a lady write a letter to a newspaper, just as well as a lady should sit in this House? The contents of that letter are going to be thoroughly examined, and if they are true it is about as serious a matter as was ever brought forward.

Mr. AYLES indicated assent.

Sir H. NIELD: I am very glad that the hon. Member nods his head in approval. My claim to speak in this Debate merely as a civilian is that of a member, for over 20 years, of the Middlesex Territorial Association. When I obtained a place in the ballot the conditions of recruiting were exceedingly bad, but they have improved since then though the position in the County of London still leaves much to be desired. We in the County of Middlesex have pursued a different way. We have been able to get our recruiting very much more advanced by the sacrifice of time on the part of members of the Association, in interveiwing the employers of labour in the districts and convincing them of the necessities of the country. [Laughter.] Evidently, we are going to have an
amusing afternoon. I should like to ask the peace group where we should have been but for the Territorials and the Officers Training Corps during the War.
Let me refer to a statement made by the Secretary of State for War with regard to the improvement in the Regular Army. I want to give testimony not only as a Member of this House but as Recorder of the City of York, where the Army of the Northern Command is situated, that drunkenness in the Army has been very much reduced. At my court, I have the figures separated. When the Chief Constable's report is presented to me at each Quarter Sessions it discriminates between those offences which appertain to the soldiers and the civilians, showing which convictions are due to the Army, which are due to the civilian residents and which are due to visitors. The diminishing number of cases of drunkenness throughout the city is perfectly wonderful.

Viscountess ASTOR: in spite of the advertisements asking the people to drink more.

Sir H. NIELD: I do not know whether that applies any more in the City of York than elsewhere, but I do know that the number of convictions for drunkenness in the Army has been very much reduced, almost to vanishing point. In 3 months I think the number has been reduced to as low as 10 or 12. In view of the large number of men in the Northern Command, that is extraordinary testimony to the sobriety of the Army. I have taken some pains to find out to what this dearth of recruits is due, and I am told by men holding responsible positions in the Army that it is due, in the first place, to the dole, secondly, to the disarmament propaganda, which has adversely affected the recruitment of the right type of men, and thirdly, to the uncertainty regarding the future of the soldier. If the Secretary for War desires to improve recruiting he has only to put an end to this uncertainty and to the disparagement by his supporters of recruiting.

Mr. McSHANE: Will the right hon. and learned Member give us his authority for that statement?

Sir H. NIELD: My authority is the secretary of the County of London
Territorial Association and the military secretary of my own association—and they ought to know. As to the Territorial Army, I am told that the reason there is the continual cutting down of the grants awarded. Commanding officers are unable to make the drill halls sufficiently attractive to encourage the young men of the neighbourhood to use them in preference to going to public houses and cinemas. If the drill halls were properly equipped they would be used as clubs, with advantage from a military point of view as well as from a social point, of view. There is a general feeling that the Government do not regard the Territorial Army as of primary importance, and this has had some effect on recruiting. In my own county the members of the association and the adjutant have put themselves out in order to go to the large establishments and convince both masters and men of the desirability of the men joining the Territorial Army. With regard to London, I am told that the 47th and 56th Divisions are the weakest in the whole country, and that this is attributable to the superior attractions in London. It is not necessary to discuss the figures which have been already given in the Memorandum, but I suggest to the War Office that if they improved the amenities of the headquarters of the various battalions they would have a marked increase in recruiting. The grants are not in excess in London of those given in the country, while the expenses of equipment are infinitely greater than they are in villages and provincial towns. I also suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should consider improving the conditions under which the Territorials are called upon to serve.
With regard to the Officers Training Corps, I was hoping that the absence of any reference in the Memorandum might lead us to suppose that it would be unaffected by the Estimates and would be left as it was. I am not going to defend putting a lad of 13 or 14 into the Officers Training Corps, although my own boys went in at that age with advantage to themselves, but I do think it is unwise to attempt to differentiate between the ages of 15 and 16, and in this matter I agree with the right hon. and gallant Member for Brighton (Major Tryon). We have
heard a great deal about the Officers Training Corps. No hon. Member opposite, who has any real knowledge of the War, would attempt to deride the services of the young men who were trained in this way. The House will not mind a father making a reference to a son who lost his life in the first advance on the Somme. That eldest boy of mine, who had gone through the Officers Training Corps at Winchester for six years and afterwards at Oxford for three years, where he was in charge, ended his life in the Battle of the Somme on the 1st, July, 1916. The House will, I hope, allow me to read an extract from a letter from his commanding officer which will be found in the Album of Biographies very shortly to be deposited in this House, biographies of those Members and sons of Members who fell in the War:
The men of his platoon had complete confidence in him, and the gallant way in which he led them is beyond any praise my words can express. I cannot say how much I deplore his loss for I too had the utmost confidence in him. I never had a finer officer.
How can I listen and sit still when the Officers Training Corps is criticised in the way it has been this evening when that young son of mine, who was a civilian and in training for the Diplomatic Corps, who had no idea of taking up a military career afterwards, behaved in that way as a military officer? Yet he did so, and that was his end. Hon. Members cannot wonder if I speak feelingly on the training of these young men when I have such a notable example in the case of my own son.

Major-General Sir ROBERT HUTCHISON: I should like to congratulate the Secretary of State for War and the War Office on the excellent volume they have issued on Army Estimates. But these Estimates have already been accepted, and the Committee on Procedure has pointed out the fact that it is necessary, if you are to keep control of policy which rules the amount of money we spend on these Services, that we should have a chance of examining the Estimates before they are accepted by the Department. It is the same with all Departments, and I hope that we shall have some alteration of our procedure in this respect. I am sorry that we are not able to deal with actual control and supervision of the Services. I refer to the Minister of Defence.
I feel convinced that we shall get no great economy, no value for money, in any of the various services unless we have some control of the distribution of the money given by Parliament to the various services. Undoubtedly, there is overlapping, and this should be one of the things to be investigated in the future if we are to get the same results for a less expenditure, if we are to get better value for the money spent.
I have watched the recruiting figures for some time with concern, both in the Regular Army and Territorial Force. It must come strongly to the Adjutant-General and to those in charge of the Territorial Army as to what is to be done. The campaign inaugurated at the end of last year had good results, but the fact remains that, notwithstanding that we have 2,600,000 people out of work at the present time, the Army does not attract them. There must be some reason for this. It is not that the military service is not attractive, but that the conditions of service want looking into. At the end of their service they come to a dead end, and I press upon the Secretary of State the desirability of examining the conditions of service, not only from the military but from the psychological point of view in order to find out what is wrong with the Service. You can get men for the Royal Navy in any numbers, and if the Army is to be kept up to the present standard, which is the minimum required as a police force, having regard to our obligations throughout the world, the authorities must make some inquiry into the conditions of service and why it is not inducing young men to join.
In that respect I have one or two suggestions to make. Men leaving the Service are at a great disadvantage, especially those who are on the married register. They finish their military service and go towards a pension for long vice, but when they come into civil life they have nothing with which to start, nothing to provide even furniture for a house. I have known cases of non-commissioned officers with three children, who have spent a long time in the Service and collected about £20, and got their final discharge with certain moneys to come, hoping to get some employment which would sustain them along with the
pension, but they found it extremely difficult to start in a house with a family, and have been unable to do so except by the aid of relatives. I suggest that the War Office might consider some form of gratuity to those who are to get pensions for long service. It would be an attraction to the Service, and would greatly help the men in facing civil life. There are also forms of employment in the various institutions in the Army which should be open to the men leaving after long service. I am referring to regional institutes and canteens, and I regret the policy which has directed so many women into these services. It is a good thing to have a certain number of women, but I think it has been overdone, and if the right hon. Gentleman will inquire he will find that many of the canteens are almost entirely staffed by women. I do not see why a great many ex-Service men should not be used in this direction. Possibly women are better than men for some things, but there are many occupations in the canteen service which men could perform rather better than women.
Let me say one word about the Officers Training Corps. I was in the War Office when it was inaugurated, and I know, therefore, from personal acquaintance, the good work they have done. When the great pressure of the War came, and we began to get short of officers, we found that the schools at Sandhurst and Woolwich could not give us the number of officers we wanted. We had to start, first of all, in France, outside St. Omer, an officers training battalion. We took men from the ranks and gave them training before they received their commissions. Then we had to tackle the problem at home here. There were established five or six of these training battalions for officers. We took promising privates, corporals and others from the ranks in France and gave them training to fit them for officer appointments. I think that from a national safety point of view the Officers Training Corps is a very valuable and a very cheap method of keeping our officer class in being. We all know that the competition for Sandhurst and Woolwich is not as great to-day as it was previously. In fact a good many units complain that they have not the selection that they ought to have.
That being so, it is all the more reason why we should do what we can to foster the Officers Training Corps.
I wish to say something about the question of compulsion. I know that in a great many schools boys who are not medically examined are expected to join the Officers Training Corps. If that method is objected to why cannot the War Office say: "Well, if there is any compulsion at all, if there is anything put into the curriculum asking the boys to join under compulsion, we will not give you the grant"? Let joining the Officers Training Corps be on a really voluntary basis. I am certain that it is not beyond the ingenuity of the War Office to frame such regulations that membership of the Officers Training Corps will be a really voluntary service, approved not only by the boys but by the boys' fathers.

Mr. T. SHAW: I can assure the hon. and gallant Member that the steps which I have announced will take away all recognition by the War Office of an Officers Training Corps for the first two or three years of a boy's life, and if the boy and his parents cannot look after the boy's position in those circumstances, I do not think the War Office can be blamed.

Sir R. HUTCHISON: I was arguing that the War Office ought to continue the grants, for the reason that this is a very cheap way of ensuring a supply of officers. Everyone knows how undecided many boys are as to the profession that they will take up. I am not at the moment pleading that the Officers Training Corps is a good training for the boy, although I believe that it is, but from the Officers Training Corps ranks we do get many boys who, with this preliminary training, take up an Army career and go to Sandhurst or Woolwich. For that reason I regret that the Officers Training Corps has been curtailed in the public schools, though I am glad to think that the universities will not be affected at all. It is perfectly reasonable to say that the Officers Training Corps in the various schools is a real channel for our officer class to go along to Sandhurst, and I for one regret that there is any limitation of its activity.
I want to thank the Secretary of State for War for his courteous letter to me on
the subject of health in the Army. He wrote to me and kindly gave me the figures as to the fever at Aldershot. I am glad to think that the statements we have received, not only from the Services but in the Press, have been exaggerated. I am sure that the matter is receiving attention, and I would remind the House that in nearly every case the contagion came either from serving men or a corporal—some cases came through certain women who are employed at Aldershot—but the greater number of cases came from barrack rooms, from active carriers. There are very few who are such carriers. Therefore, there is a possibility of elimination by careful examination. I am certain that that is being done by the medical authorities, who have experience in the matter, and I am glad to think that the outbreak at Aldershot is not as severe and extensive as I at one time thought.

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman alluding to the outbreak of paratyphoid fever?

Sir R. HUTCHISON: I am talking of spotted fever, and I understand that there are not as many cases at Aldershot as I at first understood. The disease is due, as everyone knows, to contagion and lack of ventilation. Let me now say a few words about the tattoos, to which some hon. Members opposite object. I like tattoos. We started them on the Rhine to amuse the Army there first of all, and then as the Army gradually filtered home, the tattoo became a really great pageant for the eye. I am sure the tattoo cannot really induce a military feeling or drive into the Army people who would otherwise be of a peaceful nature. I am speaking now of the wonderful tattoos at Aldershot. It might as well be proposed to prevent the cinemas from showing films of the gangsters of Chicago. No doubt it is very deplorable to be "put on the spot," but films of the gangsters are to be seen, and every child can go to a cinema and see them. The pageant of the tattoo is a very valuable recruiting agent for the Army, but there is no harm done to those who have the amusement of seeing a tattoo. At any rate I hope that the tattoos will continue, as I think they are a very good thing.
I wish to put one question on Vote 9, relating to warlike stores. I notice that in these days of peace, when we are all talking of disarmament and that sort of thing, the expenditure on warlike stores is one of the expenditures that is mounting upwards. I presume that the Vote refers to mechanised vehicles or something of that nature. It has mounted up by about £290,000. I suppose it has something to do with the replacement of worn-out vehicles, tanks, machine guns, or something to do with the artillery. At any rate it is a large sum. Finally, let me ask the Secretary of State whether he is doing anything for the pre-war pensioner. This House passed a Resolution by a majority demanding that something should be done. The question relates to a class of man who is rapidly disappearing and who in the course of a very few years will have disappeared altogether. I would like a promise from the Minister that he will devote some effort towards helping these old pensioners, who deserve the best that we can give them. I hope that in the coming year the right hon. Gentleman will devote his energy to directing a small sum towards alleviating the prewar pensioner's lot.

Mr. EDE: I would like to congratulate my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for War, on the speech with which he introduced these Estimates. I intervene with some hesitation in a military discussion, because I understand that it is usually confined to the higher commissioned ranks, and as one who never held a higher substantive rank than that of sergeant, although I was for a few weeks an acting sergeant-major, and nearly learned a language, I hesitate rather. But I wish to say that my right hon. Friend's speech really seemed to me to look at many aspects of the Army from the point of view of the man in the ranks. I want to say quite frankly that I think many parts of the speech showed quite a refreshing common sense with regard to the subjects with which they dealt. We were told, for instance, that drunkenness has decreased by three-quarters in the Army. I was at Aldershot recently speaking to a friend who has continued in the Army from the time that I was serving with him, and he assured me that the main cause of
the decrease of drunkenness is that the strength of the beer has gone down in even greater proportion than the drinking of it. But one cannot go about the military centres of the country at the present time without realising that what my right hon. Friend said is quite true, that there is a difference in outlook of the soldier on civilians and of civilians on soldiers that marks a very distinct advance in the social prestige of the rank and file of the Army.
I am not quite sure what my right hon. Friend meant when he said that pack drill had been replaced by useful instruction. I do not know whether that refers to the way in which the old schoolmasters had of making instruction distasteful by inflicting it as a punishment, but at any rate that was one of the changes that was bound to come with the increased intelligence of the rank and file of the Army. The right hon. Gentleman said that he was going to make a sacrifice, and so he had decided not to increase the ration allowance of the rank and file soldier on leave. I am bound to say that the soldier was quite prepared for the sacrifice to be made, provided that he was not called upon to share it. There may be some difficulty in persuading him that the sacrifice is really that of the right hon. Gentleman and not of the serving soldier in the ranks.
In my speech on these Estimates last year I raised the question of commissions from the ranks. I wish now to thank my right hon. Friend for the appointment of a Departmental Committee during the year. I can only hope that its labours will not be unduly prolonged, and that it will be able to present some report that will enable commissions from the ranks to be very substantially increased in proportion to the total number of commissions. We are told that since 1st April last 105 commissions have been given from the ranks, out of 616 granted altogether. How many of these commissions were quartermasters' commissions? It may be that I have in my mind an older army than that of to-day, but I do not put quartermasters' commissions on the same footing as other commissions. I believe that most quartermasters end as members of the capitalist class, and as one who was for about a fortnight an acting quartermaster-sergeant I can imagine that that
is what happens to them in spite of themselves; it really cannot be helped in that part of army administration. But how many of these 105 commissions were quartermasters' commissions? I hold very strongly that there ought to be one avenue of entry into the Army, and I totally dissent from the view expressed by the last speaker that there should be an officer class. He used the phrase "officer class" three or four times.

Sir R. HUTCHISON: I said that as we are losing the entry from the competition for Sandhurst and Woolwich, it was very desirable to stimulate more young men to come forward. Before the War there were 700 applicants for 100 places. My statement does not mean that I object to entry from the ranks.

Mr. EDE: My point of view, and I may be the only person in the House who holds such a point of view, is that history proves it to be correct from the military standpoint that the proper apprenticeship for the officer is the Army itself. The great army which defied Europe for 22 years under Napoleon recruited its best officers from men who joined in the ranks. The great army which this House maintained and which broke the power of kings, was largely officered in the same way. I think the changing standards of education will involve our having an army of that sort before many years have passed, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will give largely increased opportunities to youths who join in the ranks to take commissions. I am sure he will do more to get the proper sort of recruits from the secondary schools—I am now talking about the rate-aided secondary schools—for officers' posts, by that method than by continuing the Officers Training Corps in the secondary schools. I do not regard the British Army as a military organisation at all. A force of 148,800 men to carry out the duties of the British Army over the whole British Empire cannot be regarded as a military unit. It is little more than an armed police force, but that it forms a most valuable nucleus for this country, if we should ever be attacked again cannot be denied. I hope that the House will maintain the Army on the lines advocated by my right hon. Friend. The closing words of his speech, I think, proved that the policy of the Government with regard to the Army is the best
contribution to the cause of world peace, as far as land armies are concerned, that we in present circumstances can make.
If I may offer some criticism of what my right hon. Friend said about the Officers Training Corps I would say that while, in the main I agree with his conclusions, I am not sure that while these corps are in the schools, he will be able to avoid some form of indirect compulsion. I give the House a fortuitous example which came to my notice. I was sitting as the chairman of a body conducting a viva voce examination of some youths who were competing for a university scholarship. There was a highly intelligent youth who was easily the best of those before us, and in answer to certain questions he disclosed the fact that he was not a prefect of the school of which he was quite a distinguished intellectual ornament. As a result of questions we elicited from him that the prefects were confined to the non-commissioned ranks of the Officers Training Corps. That, in itself, is a form of indirect compulsion to get boys into the Officers Training Corps and that boy was put in that invidious position, not because of any beliefs which he held himself—because I do not think he was old enough to form those beliefs properly—but because of the beliefs of his parents. They were hardened pacifists, opposed to all forms of militarism, and they denied him permission to join the Officers Training Corps. I think it wrong for distinctions of that sort to be made inside the schools and I am sure that while my right hon. Friend continues to give any grants at all towards Officers Training Corps he cannot prevent that sort of pressure being exercised.
I wish to ask a question with regard to the Officers Training Corps which are outside schools altogether. What effect will my right hon. Friend's regulations have upon them? Last year his regulation in regard to cadet corps had the effect of abolishing certain units outside the schools altogether, although I think, he was really aiming at units inside the schools. The junior Member for Brighton (Major Tryon) said he hoped that the Army was going to be above party. I join in the hope but I do not think that the right hon. and gallant Member's speech helped us very much in that respect because he went on to talk about
the party on this side, as if we were as united in our policy with regard to peace as his own party is united, shall we say, with regard to tariffs. He should realise that just as there are considerable differences on various subjects in every party at the present time, on this subject there are very wide divergencies of opinion in, at least, two of the parties in the House.
I join with him in his remarks on one point. I think that some of the books and plays which have appeared during the past few years pretending to portray the British soldier as he was in the War constitute a great libel on the common people of this country. That there were excesses everybody knows. There are excesses in times of peace, but that the 4,000,000 and more men of our race who enlisted, not because they loved war but because they hated war, who fought—mistakenly as we have found—because they believed that the war would bring peace, who fought because they were serving a great ideal, were the beasts and monsters portrayed in those books is utterly untrue, and to represent them as such is one of the worst things that any private citizens of this country have done during the past few years. I would be untrue to the men whose bones are buried in Flanders and other fields in which our armies fought, if I did not say, as one who served in the ranks, that I fail to recognise the picture given in those books as anything approaching the truth, and I think that more steps ought to be taken to make it plain that those who saw the War, who knew the War, while realising the horror and beastliness of it all, recognise that the horror and the beastliness were in the system and not in the men who fought—at any rate as far as this country is concerned.
I can only speak for this country. I never had the misfortune to be a prisoner of war, and I do not know what went on in other armies and in other countries, but that we proved, from 1914 to 1918, that the inherent vitality of the British people in time of military stress is undiminished, I think, goes without saying. Could our army have gone through the March and April of 1918 had we been the moral degenerates which these books portray us to be? It was only the individual moral discipline of the indi-
vidual British soldier of the new armies, serving in the old county regiments, which stood between this country and disaster, and I feel that the policy which my right hon. Friend has outlined is the sound one for this country because it recognises that the inherent moral fibre to which I refer still exists. It also takes into account the great work done, in the education of our people in the last 60 years, to give us an army that, should the need ever come again—and I hope it may not come again—will not be unworthy of the great army in which some of us served during those four years.

Lieut.-Colonel SPENDER-CLAY: I am sure that the House will appreciate the speech of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), and I cannot help thinking that the admirable way in which he defended the British soldier shows that there is a considerable value in military training. I should like to add this to what he has said with regard to the misleading films and novels which have appeared dealing with the War. I notice, in one part of the Estimates, that money has been received in respect of the use of troops and army materials in the compilation of films. I should like to be assured that it is shown to the satisfaction of the War Office that no part of a film taken with military assistance contains any sloppy or objectionable story such as the hon. Member for South Shields has mentioned.
The Secretary of State maintains that there has been a reduction in the Vote for the Army—not a large but a substantial reduction—in spite of the fact that there has been a large increase in the non-effective Vote which, of course, materially affects the Estimates. I do not believe that any substantial economy can be made in the Army Estimates so long as Europe is in its present condition and so long as we have our present commitments, not only in India and the Empire, but also, be it remembered, in connection with the League of Nations. That matter has not, I think, been mentioned this afternoon and, while I cannot go into it on the present occasion, it ought to be taken into consideration. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Montrose (Sir R. Hutchison) said he did not think that any effective economies could be made unless there was
something analogous to a Ministry of Defence. I agree that it would not be in order to discuss that subject but I think it would be in order for the Financial Secretary to the War Office to tell us to what extent the bulk purchase of stores and so forth has increased and to what extent it is common, not only to the Army, Navy and Air Force but to all the services of the State.
Some mention has been made of this subject on former occasions and the view has been expressed that the appropriate Department, the Office of Works or whatever Department it may be, should purchase such articles as coal and clothes and that there might be some system of common purchase of general stores whereby economies could be made. I would like to go a little further than that. I think substantial economies could be effected if many of the Departments mentioned in these Estimates could be amalgamated and made common to the three Services. The hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Hastings) rather disappointed me because I thought he would have developed his argument when he mentioned the advantage it would be to have a medical corps common to the three Services. I know that specialised treatment is necessary in certain respects but I believe that something could be done in this direction, and that there are other branches, such as the dental service, the chaplains, education, land agents and others in which something could also be done. The right hon. Gentleman if he looks into the matter will find that money is spent on land services and on other works which could be combined, so as to take away from the overhead charges. I believe that in the purchase of stores of all kinds with the exception perhaps of specialised stores such as naval guns much could be accomplished on these lines.
7.0 p.m.
I think it was the hon. and gallant Member for Montrose who also spoke about the increase in expenditure on stores, and I take it that he did not read the Debate of last year when the late Sir Laming Worthington-Evans called attention to the fact that £600,000 worth of stores were consumed from stock in the year. I presume that this is intended to make up some of the shortage which has thereby developed. I would also like to call the attention of the
House to the fact that we are living on stocks this year, because on page 145 it will be seen that the stocks of clothing are being used this year to the extent of £151,000 while general stores are being used to the extent of £212,000. That will mean, presumably, that next year the right hon. Gentleman will have to come to the House in order to get replacements of those sources or else that he is allowing mobilisation stores to get dangerously low.
It is necessary for almost every speaker to pay attention to the very important question of the Royal Army Medical Corps. We really do want to know what is the exact shortage and whether the numbers given in these Estimates are regular serving medical officers in the Army or are men hired to do the work of the Royal Army Medical Corps. What is the position in India? I have been trying to find out what is the position of the Royal Army Medical Corps in India, and I find that the number shown on the Estimate is 290. Are those 290 expected to be receiving pay during the coming year? My information is to the contrary, that, although there is a bad shortage at home, it is even worse there. I hope that the Financial Secretary will give us figures as to the shortage both at home and in India. Another question is that of barracks and married quarters. Last year the right hon. Gentleman said he had been out to Gibraltar and Malta and had seen the accommodation there. I said then that I hoped he had not only enjoyed himself during his visit but had improved the lot of the soldiers there. He also said that he was going to establish married quarters at home. I hope he has been able to do that. Last year he said that soldiers were living in quarters and barracks which were not worthy of them. Perhaps he will be able to give some information on that point, but it is rather disturbing to read in the Estimates that the Vote is down by no less than £56,000.
One word about recruiting. Everybody is glad that there has been a distinct improvement in recruiting, and we hope the improvement will be maintained, because the difficulty of securing drafts for India is such that it is almost impossible under present circumstances. I would like to give an experience of my own during the past few weeks. I was down at a place
where a man wanted to give employment, and he employed 60 men in order to do a certain job. I happened to see those men and a more deplorable looking lot I never saw. He insisted on getting them all from the Employment Exchange, and they consisted of boys and young men from 18 to 25, who appeared never to have done any work in their lives, and not only to have no ambition but to have lost all hope. It was one of the saddest things I have seen for many a day. I should hope, not perhaps by compulsion but by getting the recruiting staff down to meet cases of that kind, that it might be possible to get a large accretion to the Army, who would in the course of a very few months improve out of all recognition in their appearance, their physical condition, their moral character, and their future. Young men of that kind, who are unfortunately out of employment to-day and drifting into becoming unemployables, would be different individuals if they were in the Army for two or three years. I realise it is necessary to hold out hopes for employment in the future. It is rather disturbing to read that, out of 30,000 men leaving the Army this year, only 1,991 have received vocational training. I know that the reason is that the Army is so short of men at home that one simply cannot spare them to go for that training. It is to my mind most unfortunate, and I hope something will be done to rectify that state of affairs.
Another matter arises out of a paragraph on page 4 of the Memorandum which the right hon. Gentleman has prepared. It states there that, with a view of enhancing the prospects of ex-regular soldiers in finding employment in civil life, endeavours have been made to coordinate the work of those voluntary organisations which work on behalf of ex-service men. I assume that he is alluding to the National Association for the Employment of Ex-Regular Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen and that there is a scheme for the absorption of regimental associations into that body. I do not know whether it is to be absorption or not. I know what good work that association has done, it is liberally supported by the Army and Air Force, and it has its representatives in many of the great cities and also in the garrison towns. To that extent it has a great pull over the
regimental associations, but it would be unfortunate if we were to discourage these old comrades association. There is a pride in the regiment which it would be a thousand pities to discourage, and I hope grave consideration will be given to this matter before any definite arrangement is made. I have spoken for some time and have asked the right hon. Gentleman a considerable number of questions, but, after all, the advantage of a Debate of this kind is to get information which cannot be given in the opening speech of the right hon. Gentleman. I hope in due course we shall have some information.

Mr. AYLES: The pacifists in the House have been very roundly attacked during this Debate, and it is as well that at the beginning of the evening some reply from one, who is not only an unreprentant pacifist but a very definite pacifist, should be given. If we are to have a discussion upon the merits of the matter before us, we ought to be quite clear that we understand one another's point of view. The right hon. and gallant Member for Brighton (Major Tryon) has suggested that we pacifists have no respect for the men who are in the Army or the men who might join the Army. That is an entirely wrong idea of the attitude that we who are pacifists take. He has said in almost so many words that those of us who are opposed to the Army and to war are not patriotic. That again is an entirely wrong idea of what we stand for. We are pacifists because we respect the men who are in the Army; we are pacifists because we love our country. I protest with all my power against hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite who believe that war is the ultimate authority in the affairs of men and nations, monopolising the whole idea of patriotism and of love for country. Those of us who are pacifists have spent, the whole of our lives in doing our utmost to remedy the evils that exist in society. We not only love our country, but we love all the best things that our country stands for, and it is because we believe that war degrades our country rather than elevates it that we are the pacifists that we are to-day.
It has been said that without our Army we would have no security. We
who are pacifists believe the contrary. We believe that armed force is a menace to the security of our country and to the security of any country. If armed force were a security to the country, how is it that the Central Powers today are smashed? In 1914 they had a military organisation that had been developed as high as any military organisation had been developed up to that time; yet to-day they are smashed. If one reads the histories of the War which have been written, few of them really agreeing with one another but all endeavouring to portray the things that actually happened, one finds that quite a number of them would have us believe that it was not military force that gave us the victory in the last War but rather the luck of circumstances and of occasion. I, as a pacifist, want to ask the military authorities in this House—and there are men and perhaps women in this House who have studied military science as deeply and profoundly as any in this country or in the world—to get up and say that they know of any means which has ever been discovered by military science that can guarantee the security of a single man or woman or child in this country. There is not one.
The fact that we are asking our men, men of the finest calibre, of the finest physique, of the finest minds, and of the finest character to do the deadly, beastly work of war is to my mind worthy of the condemnation that the Anglican Church has itself made of war when it has told us that it is unchristian and is a kind of crime in which no Christian nation should take part. You cannot prevent the blockade of one country by another country. When once war has started, you cannot prevent any means being taken in order that a military victory may be achieved. I do not forget that I was in Germany just after the last war; I do not forget that we carried on the blockade not only during the war but after the war; I do not forget that we are going to ask these men—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member's speech would be more suitable to the Amendments on Vote A than at this particular place, because this has to do with the administration of the Army.

Mr. AYLES: I will, with great respect, accept your Ruling, and as I want to
say the things which I think ought to be said, I will defer my further remarks to the occasion that you have mentioned when the House goes into Committee.

Colonel ASHLEY: There are one or two important points which have emerged from the Debate and are visible in the Estimates to which I want to refer. The first subject about which I would like further information is regarding the Army medical officers. The right hon. Gentleman in his White Paper acknowledges the serious condition of affairs, but he does not say how he proposes to remedy it. This shortage of medical officers in the Army is no new thing. When I was in the Army many years ago, the great change made in order to induce gentlemen to become medical officers was to give them military rank, but that did not help very much. It is quite impossible that the present state of affairs can continue, because, after all, the health of the men is the first consideration. It is most uneconomic not to have it properly looked after. You cannot leave it to temporary civil medical officers to look after the troops. When the Financial Secretary replies, I hope that he will tell us what steps the Government are taking to remedy this shortage.
The right hon. Gentleman said that vocational training was being given to a certain number of men, but that he was discouraged in training them on the land because the migration of workers to our Dominions has been almost entirely suspended. Why not go on with the training and let the trainees go on the land in this country?

Mr. SHAW: That is being done.

Colonel ASHLEY: If that be so, the right hon. Gentleman did not give us quite a true picture of the state of affairs, because he gave the impression to my mind that nothing more could be done in land training because the men could not go overseas; but no doubt, owing to the wonderful policy of the Government, with their Land Utilisation Bill and Marketing Bill, the countryside will blossom as the rose, and there will be a happy future for the trainees on the land.
Another subject of great importance is barrack accommodation. I know from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman last year and from what he said to-day that he feels very deeply about the state
of barrack accommodation. But what is he doing? He is asking us to vote less money this year than last year. I do not understand the position of the Government. They are always talking about how the State should be a model employer and show the way to private employers as to how things should be done, and yet they are taking no steps as far as the Army is concerned—and the Army is the servant of the State—to remedy this very disgraceful state of affairs, especially in regard to the married quarters. If the Government consider it necessary to have a housing Bill to ameliorate the conditions of the civilian population, they ought to provide better accommodation for their own servants in barracks. The State will not allow the policeman to be lodged as the soldier is lodged, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to tell us what steps the Government really mean to take to improve the barrack accommodation.
The right hon. Gentleman gave us as one of the reasons why there was an increase in the staff of the War Office that the correspondence was 50 per cent. greater last year than it was in 1913. Surely the right hon. Gentleman is not going to sit down under that. I was only a humble Under-Secretary with six months at the War Office, but I was appalled with the files that were given to me to read, and the innumerable documents that I had to go through and which sometimes took me an hour before I got a gist of the matter. Is it really necessary in the War Office to have so many files, for all the heads of Departments to initial all these files, and for the wretched Under-Secretary and Financial Secretary and Secretary of State to have to wade through them? At the Ministry of Transport we had no files at all. It may be that it was a new Ministry which had not had time to accumulate files. I speak in all seriousness for the sake of the higher officials in the War Office and of the right hon. Gentleman himself. Why cannot he have a little Committee to go into the matter and to see whether this enormous amount of written and printed documents cannot be reduced. If they were, I am sure that he would greatly reduce his task and reduce the number of clerks who have to deal with the correspondence.
I cannot congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his handling of the Officers Training Corps. With everything else in his speech, I am in cordial agreement and congratulate him upon it. He says that he is against compulsion in the Officers Training Corps. I am equally against compulsion. I do not think that a boy ought to be obliged to join an Officers Training Corps whether he likes it or not. It ought to be a matter of his own free choice whether he joins or not. Years ago when I was at Harrow in the volunteers, it was purely voluntary. If the right hon. Gentleman would take the line that he will give no public money to Officers Training Corps where there is compulsion to join, I would be with him, and he would have a clear-cut issue, but it does not help to go into a lot of niggling regulations such as that no grants will be given to a boy until he is 15 and that he is not to have a rifle until he is 16. Surely the right hon. Gentleman does not think that that will prevent militarism spreading in the Officers Training Corps. He could deal with it far better by saying that they shall not have public money where there is any compulsion than by going into these finnicky regulations.
With regard to the numbers in the Army, I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his speech; it was bold, courageous and logical. He said—and his views were supported by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson)—that we cannot under present conditions afford to reduce our effective military forces any more. Looking round the world, and seeing that in this year of grace 1931, more men are under arms in Europe than in 1914, we cannot possibly, if we believe at all that an Army is necessary—which the vast majority of people do in this country—reduce our numbers by one single man—foot soldier, horse soldier or artillery man. We are below the figure for 1914. Under Vote A in 1914 we had 186,000 men; this year it is only 149,000. The Army reserve on 1st April, 1914, was 146,000. This year it will be only 128,000, and probably by the end of the year it will fall to 120,000. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that no further reduction can be made. This ought not to be party question; it is not a party ques-
tion. I admit that when we were in Office, we reduced the numbers, and I think that we were quite right to do so, but there must always come a point when you cannot reduce any more with safety, and I am sure that that point has been reached, and that the right hon. Gentle man agrees with me. We are now roughly 10,000 men and officers below establishment in our small Army of 149,000 men—a very large deficiency. It is true that it is not very much more than in the same period in 1914, when we were 8,000 short, but in 1913 and 1912 we were up to strength.
I know that the deficiencies in recruiting go up and down according to the number of people going out of the Army, but the right hon. Gentleman gave us no clear view as to how he was going to get the Army up to strength. Candidly, I do not think that he knows how he can get the Army up to strength. Frankly, I am not able to offer a clear-cut solution. It is one of the most difficult problems of the day why, with the increased pay, better accommodation, in spite of the barracks being bad in some places, far better food and means of recreation, far less severe punishment, and with conditions in every way infinitely superior to those of 20 or 25 years ago, we have this great difficulty in getting recruits. I do not understand the physical rejections either. The right hon. Gentleman said that last year 52 per cent of the men who came forward were rejected on physical grounds. I do not suppose that the standard of medical inspection is higher than it was. It may be, of course, that during the War years the present recruits, who would then be three or four years old, were badly nourished, and that their physical state was affected, but it seems an extra ordinary thing that with improved hygiene in the schools, better housing for the civilian population, and in every way better conditions for those classes who join in the ranks, we should have this enormous number of rejections. I have always advocated that the troops should be put into smarter uniforms, and the right hon. Gentleman laughed last year when I put that suggestion forward. It would cost money, but, when everything else has been tried, why not try another alternative? Human nature being what it is, a boy of 16 or 17
will be attracted by smart clothes, perhaps even more than the money he gets when he joins. I think that the suggestion is worthy of consideration.
I think that the reason why in late years there has been a falling off in recruiting for the Army is the talk of disarmament. I wish that when hon. Members opposite talk about peace and disarmament they would at the same time take the line which the right hon. Gentleman has taken that, as long as this imperfect world is what it is, we must have an Army. You may advocate peace and disarmament, but with all these other armies in the world, and especially in Europe, we cannot afford to be defenceless If hon. Members will say that and make it clear that we must have an Army to ensure peace, men will come forward in greater numbers. Not knowing what the future of the Army may be, so many fathers tell their boys, "We do not know what is to happen in the Army; there will be further reductions; and if you join the Army you will probably be reduced and sent out before you have been there very long. Go into some other profession." Similar considerations affect those who would join the ranks of the Army, and thus they are deterred from joining one of the finest Services. Therefore, if hon. Members, without giving away any of their principles, could see their way to join with the right hon. Gentleman and with us in pointing out what an excellent career the Army offers, both to officers and to men, they would be doing a very excellent work.

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Sanders): The House will agree with me that we have had a very wide and at the same time interesting discussion on the general administration of the War Office. Certain main points have been referred to by most of the speakers, and I propose to deal generally with those points, and then to reply to the particular questions which were asked by several speakers. The first point to be dealt with is barrack accommodation. I share with my right hon. Friend a deep concern about what may be called the "housing conditions of the troops," especially married soldiers. I have taken the trouble to visit a number of barracks in order to see what the position is, and I ask the
House not to exaggerate things one way or the other. I have seen most excellent housing quarters, especially for married soldiers, in London and in what may be called the suburbs of London. There are, it is true, a number of bad spots, but when we are asked what we are doing, with the implication that it is not proposed to do anything—

Colonel ASHLEY: I did not say that.

Mr. SANDERS: I withdraw that remark. I would point out that of the total amount of building to be undertaken in connection with barracks we shall this year expend £148,000 on married quarters alone, regarding that as the most urgent part of the problem. I am not sure that any single speaker has really summed up the main difficulties in recruiting, though many aspects have been touched upon. In all those branches of the Service where technical qualifications are required there is no difficulty in obtaining recruits—wherever there is some activity beyond drilling and having to learn what are ordinarily understood to be the duties of a soldier. It is when we come to the infantry that we find difficulty. Without saying whether I agree with disarmament propaganda or not, or whether I agree with the publication of books and films which deal with the more horrid side of war, may I suggest that since the Great War there is a quite different attitude towards the Army, not only on this side of the House, and not only among the people who support this side of the House, but among the population generally? That is not due to any propaganda from specifically pacifist organisations.
It was understood by the majority of the people in this country that when the War was over there would not be any more war, and the population, not being particularly discriminating in its methods of reasoning, jumped to the conclusion that if there was not to be any more war there was no longer any need for an army. That may seem to be a very crude idea, but I assure hon. Members that many people I meet who do not belong to the working classes or support our side in politics still do not understand, as I do, and as do hon. Gentlemen opposite, why it is necessary,
although there may not be any great war in the future, still to keep up an army. In addition to that, whatever we may think of the books and films which have been referred to, certain parts of them do bring home to people the fact that war has a side which is distinctly horrible and disgusting, a circumstance which does affect their feelings. That kind of propaganda, either intentional or unintentional, against war is, I am sure, bound to act on people of a sensitive and also of a literary turn of mind.
There are also several other what I may call anti-recruiting agencies. I know that in my own constituency every soldier who was severely wounded in the War—not the regular soldiers, but the loan who went into the War direct from civilian life, is, consciously or unconsciously, an anti-recruiting agent, because the sight of him brings home to a young man what the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Hastings) did not think could be brought home to him, that is, what modern conditions of war are like. The conditions under which the Great War was fought were different from the conditions of any previous war. There was very little romance in it, there was very little opportunity for obtaining distinction as the ordinary civilian regards it; the overwhelming belief among the great mass of the population was that it was a very beastly business, such as anybody with any sense of decency ought to try to avoid. That is the prevailing atmosphere, and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is very difficult to get through that atmosphere, and convince the general run of people whom we wish to interest that, in spite of all that we went through during the late War, in spite of the fact that we on this side, at any rate, do believe in ultimate disarmament, in spite of the fact that the world is soon to come together to try to settle the problem of disarmament once for all, it is still necessary to provide for the defence of the country, that we shall have to do it, and that we propose to do it according to the policy which the Secretary of State has outlined. During the last two or three months we have had encouraging results in recruiting, not as the result of any new pressure, but as the outcome of adopting new methods of attracting men to the Army by associating them with the districts in
which they live. We hope that this success will be continued.
May I say one word to my pacifist friends? It is all very well for us to take up the line that we in this country have to set the pace for disarmament in the world. I would assure hon. Members, from a wide knowledge of the Continent of Europe, that the chief obstacle we have to face in connection with disarmament is the deep-rooted attachment of even the most democratic countries of Europe to the idea that it is the duty of every healthy man to undertake training for the defence of his country. If my particularly pacifist friends want to do their best work on behalf of disarmament they should get among their colleagues on the Continent—[An HON. MEMBER: "Russia."]—and point out to them that while the principle of compulsory military service is retained in such pacifist countries as Switzerland, for example, which has nothing to fear in the way of invasion, because it is definitely protected by the public opinion of all countries in Europe, we cannot expect to go further in this country in the direction of cutting down the numbers of our Army.
The other point to which considerable attention was devoted was the Officers Training Corps. My own view is that, no matter how illogical the proposals put forward by the Secretary of State may appear to be to some hon. Members, they are a big advance on what existed before. They form a very good compromise between those who want to have the old system retained and those who want the present system in its entirety abolished. I have been fortunate enough, or unfortunate enough, during a long political career, to come into contact with officers of armies on the Continent. In many countries on the Continent the general custom is to mark out a boy to be an officer from the time he is born, and educate him in special military schools almost from the time of adolescence, until he becomes—and this was especially the case in Germany—one of a kind of segregated class in the community, with very little understanding of and very little touch with the general mass of the population. I think that accounted very largely for what was known as the military spirit of Germany, and I personally would regret very much if the War Office
were driven to have to establish special military schools for boys to train them up to be officers. I think it is much more preferable, from the point of view even of our most pacifist friends, that the boys who may become officers should remain as long as possible in the closest touch with the general life of the community, as they can by going to the ordinary public schools. I noticed quite a different atmosphere when I was in Geneva. There I came in contact with officers from other countries, and I found quite a different atmosphere and a different point of view actuating military men there as compared with that which surrounds and actuates the military men in this country. There seemed to be a specially hard militarised point of view which one does not associate with the usual run of the British officer. I think the introduction of that atmosphere in this country would be deplorable if we had to establish special military schools where boys almost from their birth were destined to be officers in the British Army.
The question of vocational training has been touched upon, but it is going to be debated presently. Perhaps I may be allowed to say, in regard to the question of fitting men in the Army for occupations, that we must take into account the fact that we have special classes for different trades, but with the constitution of the Army as it is at the present time there is outside those classes a wide range of training in various occupations. The mechanisation of the Army means the employment of a large number of men with vehicles, tanks, dragons, and other mechanical appliances, and in this way they acquire a special knowledge of the trades connected with those vehicles and instruments which will be extremely useful to them when they leave the Army. I will not dilate upon that subject now, because I shall probably have an opportunity of dealing with it later on.
I come to certain special points which have been raised by various speakers. One question was in connection with the staff of the War Office. I have only been at the War Office seven or eight months, and what strikes me most strongly is that, when you are dealing with things other than men, it is difficult to take short cuts. When you are dealing with the human factor, you have to take a great
deal of trouble if you wish to maintain the popularity of the Army. I am certain that hon. Gentlemen opposite who have had experience at the War Office know that, owing to the late War, an immense amount of correspondence arises in connection with the men's claims for pensions, gratuities, and all kinds of things which have to be dealt with over and over again.

Major TRYON: Surely war pensions are dealt with by the Ministry of Pensions.

Mr. SANDERS: That is so, but there are a number of men who have pensions for service with which we have to deal.

Major TRYON: Certainly.

Mr. SANDERS: I know there is a technical difference, but there are hundreds and hundreds of men who have claims for all kinds of gratuities, including their war service in the Great War, who apply to the War Office again and again, and directly a new Financial Secretary is appointed new claims are made in the hope that the new occupant of that office will give a different decision. I do my best to see that every one of those claims is examined, and that justice is done. I must remind the Committee that the War Office has to deal with an Army constituted differently than it was before the War. There is a great deal more science in the Army now owing to mechanisation. I can assure right hon. Gentlemen opposite that science is not a cheap thing, although it is important. You cannot carry on the mechanisation of the Army without having a special technical staff, and that means an increase over what the staff would have been if mechanisation had not taken place. We have also to recollect that, although the War Office staff is larger than it was in 1914, as shown by the figures given by the Secretary of State for War, the War Department has cut down the staff by 500 since 1924. There has been a decrease to that extent. I would also like to point out that we require a larger number owing to the fact that we employ a considerable number of disabled men.
The question of promotion from the ranks has been raised, and I was asked certain questions with regard to the com-
missions that were given. In 1929–30 28 soldiers received ordinary commissions and 65 commissions of the quartermaster class; in 1930–31 there were 33 such ordinary commissions and 72 of the quartermaster class. I think that answers those questions. On the general question I can assure the House, and especially those who are interested in the question of promotion from the ranks, that the Secretary of State is devoting considerable attention to the problem of how to meet and justify the demand for promotion from the ranks. I am sure that the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) realises that it is not so easy to deal with this problem as might appear on the surface. I agree with the hon. Member that there ought to be some avenue through which officers should emerge to better positions from lieutenant to field-marshal, but in present circumstances it is not possible, because it is very often found that the men whom we should like to promote do not always agree to take up the responsibility and duties of the officer, and that they prefer to remain where they are. In spite of that, we are doing our best at the War Office to find some means of making the proportion still higher, and I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields that the subject will not be lost sight of.

Mr. EDE: Does the responsibility to which the Financial Secretary refer include financial responsibility?

Mr. SANDERS: I think it does. With regard to the shortage of medical officers, there are 173 officers short of the demand, and this falls entirely on the home establishment. The foreign establishment is kept up whatever the results may be.

Lieut.-Colonel SPENDER-CLAY: Does that apply to India as well?

Mr. SANDERS: Yes. The shortage falls entirely upon the home establishment. We all agree that this is a very serious matter, and we also know that several of our predecessors at the War Office have been concerned about it. This affects not only the War Office, but also the Admiralty and the Air Force, and we are now setting up an interdepartmental committee between the three Services with an object of finding some solution to the problem. My own
view is that it is mainly a question of finding out some new attraction to the Army, which in these days seems to consist mainly of money. That also brings up other questions which we have to take into consideration. If we increase the rates of pay of the Army Medical Corps, other classes in the Army will demand to be placed on the same footing, and this question has to be considered in connection with all the three Services. It is one of the matters in which the Secretary of State is taking a particular interest, and we are hopeful that we shall be able to find a solution of the problem.
8.0 p.m.
With regard to the question put to me by the hon. and gallant Member for Montrose (Sir R. Hutchison) as to the constitution of the items proposed under Voe 9, I may inform him that they consist of Army stores, munitions, vehicles, tanks, and other equipment. That accounts for the largeness of the sum. It is up, because the surplus stocks from the War are being more and more used up, and a certain amount of stock must be maintained. There was a very special cut last year, and this year is likely to be the standard of normal expenditure for future years. Certain vehicles have in addition to be replaced. Referring again to the Army Medical Corps, the question was raised as to whether specialist pay was given. I am informed that there are 107 members of the Royal Army Medical Corps who have specialist pay of five shillings per day extra. The hon. Member for Reading wished to know why there was a slight increase in the cost of the Officers Training Corps, although there was to have been a reduction in the numbers which were proposed to be included in the Estimates. I find that the increase in cost is not in respect of the junior service but in regard to the senior Officers Training Corps, where the numbers are in excess of those of last year.
There were one or two small points raised by the right hon. and gallant Member for Tonbridge (Lieut.-Colonel Spender-Clay), who raised the question of stocks. The stores referred to were not from the normal stocks nor from mobilisation stocks; they are surplus stocks left over from the accumulation during the War. They are naturally being gradually used up, and that is one
of the reasons why we find it difficult to cut the Estimate. With regard to the regimental associations which are engaged in endeavouring to find work for men who leave the Army, there is no idea at all of superseding them. The object that we have in view is to co-ordinate the different Services, to try to prevent overlapping and make them more efficient in the splendid work which they are endeavouring to do.
With regard to bulk purchase, the right hon. and gallant Member knows, of course, that the canteens of the Army, Navy, and Air Force are all run under one establishment, and I would like here to pay my tribute to the very efficient and satisfactory way in which the work is done. I think it may be said that a good deal of the improvement in the canteens is very largely due to this organisation. In addition to that body, which controls a turnover—I am speaking from memory—of something like £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 a year, there is a central co-ordinating committee on contracts, which meets regularly. In many cases the biggest user buys for the rest. I will give a case where we bought certain vehicles in conjunction with the Air Ministry, and by buying them together we were able to get each vehicle at a cheaper rate than if we had bought them separately. The biggest user buys for the rest, and close touch is maintained to prevent overlapping and to avoid competition. There are also co-ordinating committees on stores, works, and buildings, and various services.
A point was raised with regard to films. All films in which Army help is given are very carefully censored by the War Office. First of all, the scenario is gone through, so that it does not contain anything which the War Office should not help, and afterwards the film is examined to see that nothing has been introduced that we ought not to countenance in any way. In that way we guard against any improper use being made of the War Office and its resources. If I have overlooked any points, it is largely due to the fact that I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House and because, on the whole, I think the criticism that has been brought against the War Office this year has not been particularly heavy.

VOCATIONAL TRAINING.

Mr. GRANVILLE: I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words:
in the opinion of this House, further facilities should be given for the extension and improvement of vocational training in the Regular Army.
In asking the Minister to consider this Amendment, I want to draw the attention of the House to the serious position that has arisen in regard to untrained discharged soldiers being thrown on to the already overcrowded employment market. Hon. Members on these benches have never ceased to urge the Government to tackle the problem of unemployment, and it is a vital part of this question, in our view, that the supply of unemployables should be checked at the source. It is bad enough when young men get into dead-end employments, but it is worse when these young men serve their best years and find themselves adrift, with no skill or earning capacity, to find that neither ambition nor the reward of service avail unless they have skill to offer that somebody wants to buy.
To-day the British Army recruits something like 1,000 young men every year, to leave them in a position of being more or less unemployable in industry when their military service ends. The position at present is that the strength of the standing Army is 150,000, and there are some 30,000 who will pass out in the current year, of whom 1,991 will have received vocational training before they go out. In other words, 7 per cent. of those who will be discharged will have received vocational training before entering civilian life. I know the three centres at Aldershot, Hounslow and Chisledon, where they have a maximum capacity of 2,950, have many duties to perform, but if these three centres were with their full capacity they would only be able to deal with 10 per cent. of those men who would be discharged from the Army every year. This means that 93 per cent. leave the Colours in this country with no skilled trade at their finger tips.
There is another aspect of this question to which I would draw attention. On an average, the Army recruits something like 30,000 a year. By far the
greatest number of these are under 20 years of age, and the 18-year-old group forms nearly half of the total. Seventy per cent. of those who join the Colours serve for a period of from five to nine years. Taking the mean average of these, a recruit joins at 18 and serves seven years, until he is 25. These are the years when a young man should be learning a trade, and under the present arrangement at the War Office the great bulk of these young men are turned out into civilian life with no skilled trade with which to earn their livelihood. The recruiting posters which I have seen up and down this country are very enticing and attractive and very well designed, but unless you are going to train young men who go into the Army during this period of adolescence, unless you are going to give these men a training which will equip them for civilian life, you are attracting these young men into nothing less than a blind-alley occupation. An Army career for one of these young men who goes in under those conditions threatens to become a means to an end, and that end, under the present arrangement, unless there is some extension of it, inevitably means the Employment Exchange.
I suggest to the Secretary of State for War that the time has come for the Labour Government to make a full investigation and, I hope, eventually to carry out a full reorganisation, certainly a considerable extension, of the system of vocational training which obtains at the present time in the British Army. Under the present system it is by no means certain that when a young man is trained and goes into civilian life he is going to get a job, and I want to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is satisfied that in these three centres where training is now given they are being taught the right trades. Some of the older trades in the country are undergoing a very difficult period of depression, and it seems to me that if this scheme of vocational training is going to be worth anything at all to these young men or the older soldiers before they go into civilian life, you ought to begin to look at some of the trades that are to be taught, like cabinet making, furniture making, bricklaying, carpentering, and housing, because these are trades that
are doing well. I know that cabinetmaking is doing well, and—

Mr. MESSER: Is the hon. Member aware of the fact that 30 per cent, of the french polishers are out of work?

Mr. GRANVILLE: It may be, but they are not the whole of the furnishing trade. The fact remains that at a town like High Wycombe, which is a big furnishing trade centre, you had up to recently practically no unemployment at all. There are many reasons why it is a flourishing trade. It would be far better to link up these men in vocational training with a new trade than to train them to some of the depressed trades in the country. I suggest that there is ample opportunity and scope in the chemical industry, in engineering, the motor industries, wireless and gramophones, the catering trades, tailoring and clothing, the electrical trades, and so on. You may be in a position to turn men out to go into some of the trades that are at present depressed, and you may merely be adding to the unemployed in those trades.
There ought to be the closest co-operation between the Army and the employers' federations, the trade unions, and the Ministry of Labour. It ought to be possible, in these days, to plan on a wide scale extensive training for desirable workers in these particular skilled trades. It is no good selecting trades at random. I hope the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War is satisfied that the instructors in the schools for vocational training are highly equipped technicians and are able to train these men in the very latest methods and technique of the trades which they are teaching.
There is also the question of migration. I know that the Chisledon vocational training centre, which is responsible for the training of men for work on the land, is now, because of the reduction or more or less stoppage of migration, going through a, very difficult time, but I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that here is a depot where men are being trained to work on the land, and I hope he will have a serious heart-to-heart talk with the Minister of Agriculture, to see whether, under the Agricultural Land (Utilisation) it will be possible, particularly in connec-
tion with experimental farming on a big scale, to put these men who are being trained at Chisledon—and more ought to be trained—not so much in the Colonies, but to put them to work under this scheme on the colonisation of our own country. During the War, a number of Dominion soldiers who came over here got to know our troops; they talked together and rubbed shoulders together; and I would suggest that it would be worth while exploring to see if the Big Brother Movement could be extended in the British Empire between ex-service men. That has been one of the most successful forms of emigration. When a man goes out, they see that he gets proper accommodation, good conditions of labour, and so on—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir Robert Young): The hon. Member is now speaking of migration, but he must link that up with vocational training in this country.

Mr. GRANVILLE: I was going to develop that point merely in order to suggest that at the present time there is no outlet for these men who are being trained at Chisledon, owing to the cessation of migration, and that it might be possible for the right hon. Gentleman to investigate and try to arrange some scheme in connection with the Big Brother Movement with regard to ex-service men, whereby men who are being trained at the vocational training centres are sent to the Dominions and there put under the wing of ex-service men in those Dominions.
I have been reading the Army Estimate's very carefully, and I see that vocational training centres are for selected men in less highly specialised trades, that men attending the courses derive considerable benefit from them, and that, in order to discourage men who might otherwise join in order to escape regimental duties, they are all required to make a contribution to the cost of their training. I can well imagine a private in the British Army to-day, who is earning from 2s. to 3s. 6d. a day, finding it difficult to afford the 5s. a week which I understand is the lowest charge that is made as a contribution towards his vocational train-
ing; and I think that the time has come when industrial training ought to be made a part of the daily routine of all British soldiers wherever it is possible, and that the question of asking them to pay 5s. a week when they only get from 2s. to 3s. 6d. a day should be reconsidered by the right hon. Gentleman's Department. It would be far better to get these men in at a smaller charge and enable them to obtain same kind of appointment when they leave the Army.
In my view, the spirit of the age today is entirely against so many ceremonial parades in the British Army. I would rather go and visit an exhibition of the productions of the vocational training centres in this country than go and visit the Aldershot tattoo, on which thousands of soldiers are spending their ordinary training. We did hope that, when the right hon. Gentleman came into office as a Labour Minister, he would take a step in the right direction in regard to these ceremonial parades. The tragedy is that these men leave the Army, after their military service, with practically no equipment. They go out on to a market where there is considerable unemployment at the present time. They go out, perhaps, into trades which are already over-glutted. They go out into a casual kind of employment, as taxi-drivers and so forth, and I am certain that the right hon. Gentleman knows how difficult it is to obtain jobs in that section of industry. I suggest to him that, if he is going to try to get more of the younger men in this country to go into the Army, it will be necessary to prevent it from being a blind alley occupation. A large number of these boys who go out at the age of 25 are not going to give seven years of their lives, during the adolescent period when they should be getting a civilian training, unless the right hon. Gentleman and the Army authorities take steps to give them adequate training so that, when they go out into civil life, they will be able to get a job alongside those people who did not go into the Army.
The right hon. Gentleman is a Labour War Minister, and he ought not to be afraid in this connection of tradition and brass hats, or to be content merely to follow meekly in the footsteps of his
predecessors. I came of a generation who went out almost in our schooldays, and many in their training days, giving their adolescent period to military training; and I speak to-night remembering those young men who did that. We do not want to see the same kind of thing happening in the next generation. The danger exists, and I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to take a bold initiative in this matter, and try to give to all these young men who go into the Army, whether for five years or for nine years, an adequate opportunity, when they go out into civil life, to equip themselves to earn their livelihood. I am perfectly certain that, if the right hon. Gentleman does that, he will not only have the backing of this House, but will see that part of the difficulties of recruiting of which he has told us to-day will have vanished into thin air.

Major DUDGEON: I beg to second the Amendment.
I would like to make one or two suggestions to the Secretary of State for War with regard to this question of vocational training. In the first place, one must congratulate the War Office on having initiated more extensive vocational training in the post-War period, from which they have obtained definite results. Not only is more employment given to men when they leave the Colours, but there is a greater readiness now among the general body of employers to take ex-soldiers into their employment. It appears to me that a good deal of decentralisation would be desirable in regard to vocational training. The three training centres, as my hon. Friend has stated, only deal with a comparatively small number of men, and I am inclined to think that they are trained along, perhaps, a few specific lines. If we could train a much larger proportion of the men who are leaving the Colours along wider lines, I think they would undoubtedly find employment more readily.
In this connection I am inclined to think that men coming near to the completion of their service at home are in a more favoured position than men coming near to the completion of their service abroad, and, if it were possible, say in the last six months of service, to get a larger proportion of men serv-
ing abroad brought home for vocational training, it would be a step in the right direction. The regimental depots, and especially the infantry depots, are mainly concentrated in the territorial areas of the various regiments, and they might be utilised for vocational training. We might get a larger proportion of the men of those regiments who are doing their last six months of service brought home and transferred to the depot. Not only would this lead to their being trained along vocational lines, but I think, also, that they would find employment more readily in their territorial areas. Moreover, I think it would be possible to get expert instructors at comparatively low rates, and I see no reason why there should not be a certain amount of co-operation, in the training of these Service men, between the War Office and the local education authorities.
Education authorities are very considerably extending technical education and increasing their technical staff, and the highly-trained teachers should be utilised with a certain amount of co-operation in instruction of the men who are about to leave the Colours. After all, it is very important that these men should as far as possible receive training during the whole period of service. I know it is particularly difficult to train the men who are serving with units abroad, but possibly something could be done to allow a continuous vocational training in certain specific lines. I have no figures, but I am inclined to think that the employment of ex-naval ratings is more satisfactory than that of ex-soldiers, and should think that is largely because the sailor gets a certain amount of training on board ship on vocational lines. I notice in the Navy Estimates that ships and dockyards have vocational courses.
It appears to me that the Navy has achieved more decentralisation in its vocational training than the Army. It appears from Army methods that we have had a great deal of concentration in regard to the three particular centres, and vocational training has not been carried out to a very large extent in particular units, though I fully recognise the difficulty of giving effective training in these units.
I think it is necessary to take a survey very frequently in regard to the likely avenues of employment and that men, as
far as possible, should be induced to take vocational courses where they are likely to find employment when they leave the Service. It is also of extreme importance to get highly-trained instructors. These men are only going to be trained for a comparatively short time, and it is, therefore, of extreme importance that the instructors should have the highest possible qualifications, so that the men may have an opportunity, in whichever occupation they are entering, of competing on fairly level terms with those who have not joined the Army and have, therefore, had better opportunities. I would ask the Secretary of State to take into consideration the necessity of trying to get the greatest possible volume of men trained along some vocational line, because in that way alone I am strongly of opinion that we shall be able to find a larger proportion of them absorbed in useful occupations in civil life and getting posts. In my opinion, it has always been a grave slur on the country that so many ex-soldiers were tramping the highways and by-ways unable to find a decent livelihood.

Mr. SCURR: I followed the hon. Member who has moved the Amendment with considerable interest, more, apparently, than the House itself has followed him, seeing the small numbers that have been present while he has been putting forward his interesting proposal. Even the party to which he belongs has not honoured him with the attendance of many of its Members. I do not think there is one of us who would not agree that men in the Army should, if possible, be trained, so that when they come out they may be able to find employment, but the hon. Member has not told us where we are going to find the employment for them. He instances cabinet-making. I have in my constituency a large number of highly skilled cabinet-makers, who have passed through their apprenticeship, who are walking about, some having to go to the Public Assistance Committee to get something to tide over their difficulty. We are saying to the soldier, "We will train you, and if there is a job, you can have it." He will get into that job and the man who has been through his apprenticeship will be put out. Here we are up against the whole problem of the capitalist system. The same question has arisen for years in regard to ordinary apprenticeship in
civil life. Parents sacrifice a good bit very often and send their boys to a technical school and apprentice them and all the rest of it, and in the end there are hundreds of them perfectly competent but walking about without a job. The thing to do is not to talk about the vocational training of soldiers, but to say where the work is on which can be employed not only those who have been trained in the Army but those who have been trained outside. If we get down to that problem, there will be no need for Amendments of this description.

Mr. SHAW: With the spirit of the Amendment I am quite in accord and as far as may be humanly possible, will do what I can in any reasonable way to help to realise the state of things that the hon. Member would like to see, in which a soldier will automatically return to civil life and find a place waiting for him. I think, however, that his figures must be exaggerated. I should not be honest if I let him go away with the idea that I thought it was possible, even at a great distance, to approach the ideal that he has laid down. Let me take, first of all, the actual condition as it is. A very large proportion of these men who are trained get back in civil life to a job, and I should think a higher proportion, generally speaking, get jobs than the ordinary working men. It is also true that constant endeavours are made to find jobs of all kinds for men who leave the Army and, to put it mildly, they have certainly as good a chance as the ordinary working man.
I cannot understand some of the hon. Member's statements. He seems to look upon taxicab driving as a kind of outside occupation. As a matter of fact, it is a very highly skilled occupation, and in London you have to pass an examination which is almost as difficult as getting a degree at a university before you can drive a taxicab. I will give an example in order to show what a taxicab driver has to do. For some time, I was driven about by a man who previously had been a coachman to the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. He is a splendid driver. He knows London as I know the palm of my hand. He has actually failed to pass as a taxicab driver, and the authorities will not accept him. So that the hon.
Gentleman is quite wrong in saying that taxicab driving is an unskilled occupation.
Secondly, it is not the case, if you have 180,000 men going into the Army, that 180,000 of them leave without a job at their finger-ends. Every man who is in a horse regiment leaves as a skilled horseman, with a knowledge of horses far greater than that acquired by the man who is brought up in the ordinary way in the country and deals with horses. Every man in the Royal Army Service Corps, every man in signalling, every man in a dozen different occupations on our mechanised side goes out of the Army a specialist, so that it is quite wrong to assume that people go out of the Army untrained and often not in a condition to earn their own living. I want the hon. Member to realise that I am saying this with all sympathy with him. In order to prevent myself from being accused of having made promises which I did not intend to perform, I will put the difficulties before him. He has mentioned half a dozen different trades, in all of which it is fairly safe to say that without actual workshop practice it is impossible to become a really skilled man under three or four years. Just imagine a state of things in which you have training institutions in the Army and in which you are going to train men to be equivalent to the skilled workmen in the trades which have been mentioned.
Frankly, the thing is impossible. You cannot have a man training as a soldier and training as one of these skilled workmen at the same time, and turn him out at the end of his course, after a few months specialised training, fitted to go into an ordinary workshop and make his living among other men, assuming that there were jobs waiting. Who would think for a single moment that you could send a man into a shop as an engineer with this class of training? If you attempted to run at every depot, as has been suggested, these training courses for anything up to a dozen different trades, with skilled inspectors at the disposal of the depots, the thing would be so tremendous in volume—I want hon. Gentlemen to look at it from the point of view of ordinary common sense—that in the matter of expense it would be impossible. You simply cannot do it. If you are to turn men out skilled men on those lines, it will not be a matter of
thousands but of millions. That is no exaggeration, as the hon. Member will realise, if he will give it a moment's calm thought.
I am prepared to say to him—and I ask him to withdraw his Amendment on the grounds of the statement I am going to make—that what is humanly possible in order to advance this training in a practical way and to fit these men so that they can come back into civil life with a decent chance of a job, we will try to do, but we cannot do impossibilities. I will give a guarantee to the hon. Gentleman, if he will withdraw the Amendment, to do what I can in the matter, but I cannot perform miracles, and I do not promise to perform impossibilities.

Mr. GRANVILLE: In view of the statement and the promise of the right hon. Gentleman, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.
Supply accordingly considered in Committee.

[Sir ROBERT YOUNG in the Chair.]

NUMBER OF LAND FORCES.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a number of Land Forces, not exceeding 148,800, all ranks, be maintained for the Service of the United Kingdom at home and abroad, excluding His Majesty's Indian Possessions (other than Aden), during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1932.

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: As on the occasion of last year, I desire to draw the attention of the Financial Secretary to the War Office to, and to ask him certain questions upon, the position of the men at the ordnance factories at Woolwich and at Enfield. I confess that I was disappointed to-day when the Secretary of State, in his opening statement, did not think that the position of these two factories was of sufficient importance to justify his making some allusion to them. As many Members of the Committee know, the last 12 months, particulary as far as Woolwich and Enfield are concerned, have been very black for many of the men. At Woolwich there has been a very considerable spell of short time which has involved
a very heavy cut in the pay of the poorer paid workers. The minimum rate of the wages of the Woolwich Arsenal workers has been violated, and in certain cases, as a result of the Government's action, wages have been reduced to a sum of …2 3s. 10d. per week. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that, in view of all the promises and undertakings which were given to those men, particularly at the last General Election, there is no constituency in the country which has so many disillusioned and disappointed men in it as my constituency at the present time.
I remember well, and I have heard it for years, men occupying responsible positions in the Labour party saying that if only a Labour Government were seated on the Treasury Bench how, by administrative action and matters of that kind, there would be a full factory at Woolwich, or a peace factory; that swords would be turned into ploughshares, that other things would be substituted, and talk of that kind. Last year was a very bad year and none of those promises or undertakings—many of us pointed out at the time that none of them was capable of fulfilment—has been fulfilled. In addition to the cutting down of the wages of the poorer paid men within the last 12 months, the pensions scheme of the Woolwich Arsenal workmen has definitely been rejected by the Government.
At Enfield, the position is very bad. The Government have abolished piecework and changed over to time rates. Over 500 men are affected, and in the result there have been very substantial reductions in earnings. Since April last many of the poorer paid men have had their wages reduced by anything from 13s. to 20s. per week. I remember the hon. Member who represents Enfield (Mr. W. Henderson) propounding a most carefully-thought-out scheme how the problem might be solved and the position restored. He made a very earnest appeal to the Secretary of State for War and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury that his ideas might be brought immediately into operation. From that time short time has prevailed, and a very large number of men who were promised such a lot by this Government have had their livelihood and their wages interfered with.
I want to put certain questions to the Financial Secretary to the War Office on behalf of the men. I find from the Army Estimates that there is a reduction of wages for civilian subordinates in the stores, workshops and depots of £50,000. That is not a very cheering prospect for the people who are to be affected. That does not sound very much like a full factory, or swords being turned into ploughshares at a remunerative rate. I would ask the Financial Secretary how he proposes to effect this reduction, and whether it will particularly concern any of my constituents. When the Government introduced short time into Woolwich Arsenal, they gave a very definite undertaking. The hon. Member's predecessor in office, on the 24th March last, in defence of the suggestion of cutting down the wages of the Woolwich Arsenal workmen, said that he had either to introduce short time or that there would have to be discharges from the Arsenal. On column 176 of the OFFICIAL REPORT the hon. Member's predecessor in office made this statement:
We came to the conclusion that whatever happened there would be no discharges."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th March, 1930; col. 176, Vol. 237.]
That was a very definite statement. I can well understand the logic of the argument which says that it is far better for a great body of men to have their wages reduced than that there should be an arbitrary number of men dismissed. But I do not understand, in view of that undertaking, how it is that there have been a number of discharges during the past 12 months. They have been discharges of an unfortunate character. The Financial Secretary to the War Office may say that there have been discharges before. It is a favourite answer of the present Government to say that other Governments have done this or that, but these discharges follow a definite undertaking.
One of the mast unfortunate breaches of this undertaking has been the fact that since the beginning of this year there have been 135 discharges of employés under 21 years of age. I have put questions to the Financial Secretary and to the Minister of Labour as to the policy of the Government in regard to these young men. These young men are taken on at Woolwich Arsenal at the age of
15 or 16, and they get their training there, and yet, in face of the undertaking that has been given, the Government have discharged 135 of them. What does the Financial Secretary expect to happen to these young men? At Woolwich we are in a most unfortunate position, apart from the action of the War Office. We have a borough council which has been quarrelling with the Government's own Minister of Labour as regards work schemes. As the result of State-aided schemes they have only 300 or 400 men working on them.
We have in Woolwich double the number of unemployed to-day compared with the number when the present Government took office. What opportunity and what chances are there for the young men who are being discharged in this way? I have asked the Minister of Labour how many of these 135 young men had secured jobs through her efforts or the efforts of the Employment Exchange, but no definite reply was given. I am very much afraid that these young men after spending three, four or five years at the Arsenal, engaged in training, have joined the mass of people who are unemployed. I want to know from the Financial Secretary whether this policy of discharging young men when they reach the age of 21 is going to be continued, and I beg of him not to say that he is following precedent, because I would remind him of the very definite undertaking which was given by his predecessor only a year ago.
I should like the Financial Secretary to tell us what he is going to do in regard to two or three important grades of men at Woolwich Arsenal whose claims I have endeavoured, in common with my colleague, to put before him during the last 12 months. There is a question which affects a very important grade of men, Grade 4 clerks, who have been agitating for some time as regards their promotion to established grades. I have put questions to the War Office during the last 12 months, without satisfactory results, and I hope the hon. Member will be able to say something in regard to their position to-night. What is the position of another body of men who have been constantly asking for relief? I refer to the position of the second class book-keepers. Their terms and conditions of service deserve the consideration of the Government. The only
reply that I have received to what the Government must regard as just claims which deserve to be considered is that there has been a quarrel as to the representation of this particular section of employés on the Whitley Council. This deadlock has been going on for months, and as a consequence the claims of this section have, I would respectfully suggest, not had an opportunity of fair consideration.
Finally, I would again raise the question of the position of the Government Workers industrial Union. The hon. Member is well aware of the position of this union, that it has a membership of many thousands—

The CHAIRMAN: I do not see where this matter comes in.

Sir K. WOOD: I do not know whether precedents appeal to you, but I raised this question at this time last year.

The CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman may have raised it last year. I would remind him that he can mention it but not go into details.

Sir K. WOOD: I certainly will not go into details. I am always very anxious to keep within the Rules of this House. I will content myself, without going into details, by asking the Financial Secretary whether he has come to the conclusion to give due recognition to this union, which represents the majority of the poorer paid men in Woolwich Arsenal. I hope that the Financial Secretary will be able to give me a satisfactory reply to the questions that I have put. The Prime Minister when he was a candidate at East Woolwich, stated that men would be maintained in their positions; now, to-night, I have to express the dissatisfaction of many thousands of men in that area at their treatment by the Government and their desire to obtain some redress.

Mr. WILLIAM HENDERSON: I want to raise the same point which the right hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood), mentioned in the beginning of his speech, when I thought that he was going to lend me support in the case that I have to present. Unfortunately, as is usual with the right hon. Gentleman, he spoilt his speech by introducing political partisanship into his statement. I entirely disagree with him in his criticism
of the Government as regards these factories. Last year the conditions of the workers in the Woolwich Arsenal and the Small Arms Factory at Enfield were mentioned. About 500 skilled and unskilled men were affected by the change over from piece rates to time work, and at that time I made a strong appeal to the Financial Secretary, my hon. Friend's predecessor, and asked him to do his utmost to restore the position as soon as possible. Previous Governments had resorted to dismissals, but the present Government declined to resort to dismissals and adopted the change-over system, and very soon after were able to restore some of the men to the old conditions. I understand that a decision was taken that on the 18th of December the remainder of the men should be restored to the old conditions, that is piece rates.
9.0 p.m.
While this promise has been in the main redeemed, there are still a number of workers at the Enfield factory who remain on day rates. The change from piece rates to time work mean a reduction in earnings of from 13s. to 20s. per week, and that is a very serious reduction in these days. If my information is right there are still a number of workers at the Enfield factory who remain on time work and have to bear this reduction in wages and, therefore, I want to make an appeal to him to make a personal inquiry into the matter and, if my information is correct, to see what he can do to place these men on the same footing as other workers in the factory. Another point that I desire to mention is this, that apparently a new practice has grown up recently of transferring men from the bench and the machine to what is called the traffic branch, or in other words to the labour gang. This change also means a substantial reduction in earnings and quite naturally produces a great deal of discontent. I am told that men after 20 and 30 years' service, who have come to be known as first grade mechanics or bench hands, have had to undergo this transference and join what is called the labour gang, with a consequent reduction in their wages. Representations have been made from time to time to the management but I understand that as recently as three weeks ago a further number of men were put on this labour gang work. The explanation of the management is that in certain sections
there is ample work but an insufficient number of men and that in other sections there is inadequate work and too many men. On the face of it that would appear to be a reasonable explanation, but it seems possible for the management to take such action which might, if it does not prevent the need for this transfer, at least minimise it. I am informed that after 1918 many thousands of rifles were sent to the factory on the ground that they required to be repaired, but that they only underwent very slight repair and are still not in a condition for ordinary service purposes. The suggestion is made that if these rifles were brought out and put into thorough going repair it would give a great deal of work to the factory; and I mention this in the hope that the inancial Secretary will have inquiry made and if it is at all possible will provide increased employment by these means.
Finally I want to raise the question of the prospects for the coming 12 months. The Financial Secretary will remember the serious change that took place last year with the serious reduction in wages to which I have referred. I admit that the Government at the earliest possible moment have sought to restore the position, but what I am concerned about is to secure from the Financial Secretary a pledge or undertaking that during the coming 12 months there will be no return to the practice resorted to on 1st April last year. The War Office has shown great enterprise in seeking to cope with the difficulties at State factories, and I know that my hon. Friend has done a great deal to restore the position at the Enfield factory. I should be very glad if he can give me an assurance to-night that during the coming 12 months the War Office will not find it necessary to make the change which unfortunately they had to make last April.

Mr. OSWALD LEWIS: I want to say a word on the subject of recruiting. In the annual report of the British Army for 1930 we read that the intake of recruits during the year ending on 30th September, 1930, was the lowest since the War, only 26,550 recruits having been obtained. In Command Paper No. 3798, issued by the Secretary of State for War, we read further that, on 1st April, 1931,
the British Army, inclusive of British troops in India, will still be approximately 10,000 below establishment.
A little later on in the same Command Paper there is this statement:
As the British troops in India are approximatey up to establishment, the whole of the shortage falls on the Army at home, and the bulk of it on the infantry. In consequence, the task of finding the drafts necessary to maintain oversea garrisons has been accomplished only with great difficulty.
I wonder what hon. Members opposite would say if any other big employer of labour were to come before this House at this time and complain that he was unable to obtain workers. I think they would be inclined to suggest that either he was not taking adequate steps to make known the suitable vacancies that he had, or that there was something wrong with the conditions of employment. Let me take the second alternative first, as to the condition of employment in the Army. Is the Secretary of State prepared to say that they are unsatisfactory? If so why has he taken no steps to alter them? From further observations that he makes in the Command Paper, where he speaks of a temporary improvement in recruiting during January, and says that this is encouraging, as it tends to show that the advantages of life in the Army are being appreciated—the "advantages of life in the Army" is how the Secretary of State described the position—I take it that he is satisfied, broadly speaking, with the conditions that are being offered. Very well. Why does he fail to get an adequate stream of recruits?
We are faced, as everyone knows, with a state of affairs in which there is unparalleled unemployment in this country, an unparalleled number of men seeking work and unable to obtain it. One would have thought that at such a time the trouble would not have been to find recruits, but to select from among those who offered themselves. It is no doubt a matter of argument as to how far the actual conditions stand in the way. The hon. and gallant Member for Montrose (Sir R. Hutchison), in a speech earlier to-day, opined that the conditions were unsatisfactory, and suggested that that was in part the explanation. Again I say, if that is so, surely the Secretary of State can come forward with some proposals to improve them. No, Sir, I think
the plain truth of the matter is that what is at fault is not the conditions of employment in the Army, but the lack of energy on the part of the Secretary of State. He is faced with this shortage of recruits. He can see from the unemployment figures every day that there are large numbers of men unemployed. He may, and does, speak of getting a high proportion of men applying as recruits who are not physically fit. He would hardly suggest that there are not only enough, but many times more than enough, men physically fit for the Army unemployed and not offering themselves as recruits.
That seems to me to be by far the outstanding problem that the Secretary of State has to solve—this shortage in the Army. I suggest to the Committee that the right hon. Gentleman is doing very little to attempt to solve that problem. I have yet to learn that he has taken the trouble to go himself and address a single recruiting meeting in the country. Why should he not do it? [HON. MEMBERS: "Why should he?"] Because he draws his salary as Secretary of State for War, and the nation has a right to see that he does the work. It is his job to get recruits and to see that the establishment laid down by Parliament is maintained, so far as that is humanly possible. No hon. Member can suggest that on the ground of scarcity there is any impossibility in getting these men. What is required is a little energy on the part of the Secretary of State for War.
I fear that the trouble lies even a little deeper than that. There is a very significant passage occurring a little later in this Command Paper to which I have referred, in which the right hon. Gentleman refers to something that is being done "in pursuance of the demilitarisation laid down by me." I think it is time we had a Secretary of State for War who was concerned, not with demilitarisation, but with carrying out the job which he has undertaken to do. Just consider the Debate to-day. I listened very carefully to the speech of the Secretary of State and I have heard the greater part of the Debate since. I can say without fear of contradiction that the only two practical contributions towards filling these vacancies in the Army put before us by the Secretary of State this afternoon were these: First, he proposes to cut
down the estimate for the recruiting staff. If hon. Members look at the Army Estimates they will see that whereas in 1930£75,000 was allowed for the recruiting staff, in 1931 only £67,500 is to be allowed—a reduction of £7,500. That is the right hon. Gentleman's first contribution towards getting more recruits.
His second contribution is to tamper with the Officers Training Corps. He himself to-day told the House that the shortage of officers was causing him grave concern. I wonder whether there is in this House a single Member who, having passed through an Officers Training Corps, can be found to stand up and support the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to Officers Training Corps? I venture to say that there is not one out of the many in this House who have passed through Officers Training Corps in their day. The hon. and gallant Member for Montrose also referred to the question of compulsion and suggested to the Secretary of State that, if the objection felt by many hon. Members to the continuance of Officers Training Corps at public schools was the element of compulsion—which exists, at any rate in some of those schools—then the element of compulsion ought to be removed. I think few if any Members would object to such a proposal. I, for one, would never ask the House of Commons to provide specifically for a compulsory Officers Training Corps in any school.
The Secretary of State excused himself on the ground that he was not President of the Board of Education. That is rather a poor excuse. He himself said that the Officers Training Corps were originated at the request, not of the President of the Board of Education, but at the request of a former Secretary of State for War, the late Lord Haldane, and, surely, if one Secretary of State for War can go to the public schools and ask them to institute Officers Training Corps, there is nothing out of place in another Secretary of State for War going to them and saying, "I would like a modification in the arrangements as to these Officers Training Corps and I would prefer to have the element of compulsion removed." Even at this late stage I appeal to the Financial Secretary to the War Office, in the absence of the Secretary of State, to do what has been sug-
gested from below the Gangway and to say frankly that a condition of recognition must be the removal of the element of compulsion, that a boy should be allowed to join or not to join as he likes and that the Corps should be allowed to function as they have functioned in the past and not tinkered with in the way suggested, boys of one age being told that they can have a gun and a tunic, whilst boys of another age are not to have any equipment.
It is hard to imagine how any man with the knowledge which the Secretary of State must possess of the services rendered to the country as a result of the training given in these Corps, should desire to cut them about in the manner suggested this afternoon. I do not know how far it would meet the objections of hon. Members opposite if this element of compulsion were removed. It might not meet the objections of all of them, but I should hope it would meet the objections of a great many of them and I suggest that it would be a better method of dealing with the problem. We recognise that the Secretary of State is in a difficult position in combining the duties of the head of the Army, with his position as a member of the present Cabinet, but I think, as far as the Officers Training Corps are concerned, he might, on the lines which have been indicated, secure agreement, and avoid doing a great deal of harm. On the general subject of recruiting, however, I consider it difficult to exaggerate the reflection which it is on the right hon. Gentleman that at this time we should still be short of recruits. It is not only serious to the Army, but it it also serious as regards national employment. If these vacancies were all filled, then, by that number, the sum total of unemployed would be reduced, so that on the ground of efficiency in the Army, as well as on the ground of doing something even at this late hour to diminish instead of increase the number of unemployed, it is desirable that the right hon. Gentleman should show a great deal more energy and vigour in the discharge of the duties of his office than he has shown during the past year.

Mr. WELLOCK: I appreciate very much the speech of the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. O. Lewis) in which he has sought to arrive at an accommoda-
tion in regard to the Officers Training Corps, but I think it must be admitted that the difference between us is fundamental. There has taken place during the last few years a tremendous change in public opinion in this country in regard to militarism. A large number of our young people have been brought up under the influence of a new and very powerful ideal in their homes and to a large extent also in the churches—the ideal of disarmament—and it is very unfair that these boys when sent to public schools should have thrust before them the alternative of joining Officers Training Corps or occupying an isolated position which is very distasteful to them. I do not believe it possible to do away with compulsion as long as you have military training in the schools at all, and, while I sincerely congratulate my right hon. Friend on having taken the step which he has taken, I do not think that he has removed the difficulty, and I shall not be content until the grant is taken away from the schools entirely.
I realise that the Secretary of State has no control over the question of military training in this respect, except in so far as his grants are concerned, but I think my argument in regard to the disinclination of a large number of boys to-day to join Officers Training Corps, is supported by the fact that only 7 per cent. of those boys actually join the Army afterwards. That is a very significant fact. On the other hand boys get much through the Officers Training Corps which we would desire them to retain. We would desire that they should have their jaunts into the country, that they should be able to camp out in the summer-time for a week or two, scouring the countryside and having their games and so forth, and, in place of going to see guns and the like at the arsenals, there are plenty of engineering concerns in the country to which visits might be paid.
The hon. Member for Colchester also raised the question of recruiting. There, again, I think we ought to be prepared to face the facts. I think they were faced by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Brighton (Major Tryon) who, speaking in regard to the shortage of officers said, frankly, that he believed it to be due to some extent to pacifist propaganda and ideals. I think that is true and that we should face the fact.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman added that he thought it was a passing phase. I remember three years ago the then Secretary of State for War, the late Sir Laming Worthington-Evans made precisely the same statement.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being present—

Mr. WELLOCK: Precisely the same statement was made some three years ago by the late Minister of War. That being the case, I think it is very significant of the times, and it shows that we must prepare our mind and policies for a new kind of attitude on this very important question. Before I sit down, I should like to say a few words on disarmament and the reduction of man-power. The Minister of War said he believed in the policy of general disarmament, and not unilateral disarmament. I have come to the conclusion that the world will not be disarmed until we are prepared to adopt unilateral disarmament. My right hon. Friend said that there was nothing to prove that unilateral disarmament would be successful, but I think the contrary is the case. As a matter of fact, we all know that we have had the London Naval Agreement whereby America, this country and Japan decided on a certain policy of limitation. Within the last fortnight or so we have had France and Italy coming into line.

The CHAIRMAN: We cannot discuss international disarmament now.

Mr. WELLOCK: I quite appreciate that, and I was merely trying to illustrate the possible success of the policy of unilateral disarmament. In my view this question is not one of arithmetic, but of morals. We are at the present moment really waiting for a change in the atmosphere of the world, which, in my view, can only be brought about by courageous action on the part of any particular nation. A short time ago M. Briand, speaking on the occasion of Germany coming into the League of Nations, said:
No more war[...] Henceforth it will be the duty of the Judge to see that the law is observed. As the individual citizen submits his grievance to the decision of the Judge, so must we bring our international difficulties to be solved by peaceful methods. Away with our arms, our rifles, machine guns and tanks! Clear the way for conciliation, arbitration and peace!
There you have the right mind to peace which exists all over the world to-day as in our own country, and yet we are not able to bring ourselves to the point of actual disarmament. That is the condition of the world to-day. It is not a question of arithmetic, as I have said, but one of morals, and the nation which has the courage to take a strong line on disarmament of itself will affect the atmosphere of the whole world. Although the world may not respond immediately, there can be no question about it that a change in the atmosphere of the whole world will come, and that policy will be vindicated. I think that position was splendidly illustrated by Dr. Nansen in a speech he made at Saint Andrews University to the young men of that city in 1926. Appealing to the heroism of the young men of our land he was trying to take the mind of our generation away from militarism, as the chief avenue of heroism, into other directions, and he suggested that one of the greatest, if not the greatest, achievement during the next generation would be to clear the world of war and militarism, and he used these words, which are germane to the issue of unilateral disarmament:
There must be no clinging to the old privilege of waging private wars. There must be no lingering thought that if the League is weak in some directions it may, perhaps, serve our private interests. We must have no reserves. We must set out on a new path in international affairs, a path opened to us at Locarno, and we must destroy the bridges behind us which lead back to the old policy and the old system, both of which are such utter failures. I have always believed that in the big things of life it was vitally important to leave no line of retreat.
That is the point of view I have held for many years, and I am convinced we shall never have a warless world until we get the nations prepared to take that line of action. It is my firm hope that as soon as may be, and I hope, at any rate, when next year comes, and we are confronted with the conference, my right hon. Friend in his Department will be able to give a lead to the world in the direction of disarmament by saying what this country is prepared to do in undertaking a big measure of disarmament.

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: I do not wish to follow on the lines of the speech to which we have just listened, but I
should like to call the attention of the Committee to one point already dealt with before Mr. Speaker left the Chair, which is of such transcendent importance that it requires further attention, namely, the question of the really critical position in which the whole Army is in at present owing to the shortage of medical officers. I am afraid the House generally and the public look upon this as a matter of minor importance. They always say that as soon as a force goes overseas for active service, you can always get young doctors to fill the places. There are two reasons why I think I can get Members of this House to unite with me in recognising that that does not fill the Bill.
What is the present position? We have it from the Financial Secretary that out of an establishment of 823 medical officers, we are 173 short, or 20 per cent. short of establishment. We have it said also that foreign establishments have to be kept up to the mark, and, therefore, the position is that medical officers going overseas come back after five years' service, and, after having only one or two years at home, have to be detailed for another five years' foreign service. When young officers, especially those who are married, have been sent back for a second term, they say they cannot take it any longer, and that they cannot stand constant terms of foreign service, for, after all, they have a family outlook as well as we have, and have an interest in staying at home. Therefore, it is with the greatest difficulty that the War Office can now fill the foreign service roster this year. I gather that it is most unlikely that next year they will be able to fill the roster.
I understand those who have been investigating this matter sympathetically, the British Medical Association Committee concerned, say that if the present arrangements continue, it is estimated there will be another 200 resignations within the next two or three years, and the service will be cut down to one-half. With increasing force, because it will be all the more necessary to keep the existing regular men abroad, all the more will they say they must clear out of the service at any price. Can we afford, as long as we keep up an army, to have that position, with the services of majors, colonels and senior officers, and being
entirely dependent on men who are retiring rapidly? There are two reasons why one has to keep the service alive, and it is impossible to fall back on the cheap alternative and the idea that you can always supply the needs by the ordinary civilian medical profession. The ordinary civilian profession, as a matter of fact, are particularly comfortable in their ordinary occupation, and do not feel at all anxious to go abroad on expeditions for any length of time. Even if there were such an expedition, it would be doubtful, unless it were one of the first magnitude, that a lot of men would be prepared to go.
How can we possibly fill the roll? I have said that we must have a trained staff. We could fill it up to a certain amount with civilians who are good enough for treating men, but there are two reasons why we want a trained staff. Some of us remember the appalling scandals at the beginning of the South African war which I witnessed as a young civil surgeon in South Africa. The wounded came off the field of battle and went for 600 miles all heaped up in one train. It was a perfect disgrace to civilisation. Then there were the appalling revelations that were made at Bloemfontein nine months afterwards with the square mile of graves of men who died from typhoid fever. All the force and fury of public opinion were brought to bear against the War Office for not having made proper provision. Inside the War Office the full blast fell on the unfortunate Surgeon-General of the Army Medical Service, who had been making constant representations of the inadequacy of the provision made for him, but these representations fell on a deaf ear.
We are in exactly the same position now. The same representations have been made by successive Directors-General of the Medical Service ever since the War to every Secretary of State in each Government, and in each case they have said that they are asking too much, or that it does not matter very much as they can always get the young men. Finally, we have the Secretary of State to-day making the confession, which has never been made so clearly by any of his precedessors, and which we see in the White Paper:
The number of new officer entrants for the Army Medical Corps, which has been most unsatisfactory since the Great War, has fallen still lower during the past year, and the deficiency of regular officers is causing me grave concern.
It is causing all of us who understand and who have had the privilege and honour and difficulty of serving with the Army, the gravest possible concern. We do not see the way out of it, and it seems that we are making headlong for disaster. I ask those who are going to move a reduction of the Army, which means practically the extermination of the Army—

Mr. KINLEY: And medical officers as well.

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: You would not want medical officers if there were nothing to do. Inasmuch as they know that their Amendment will be defeated and that the Army will continue, I ask them to recognise, as we all do, that we are responsible to the nation which lends us something like 150,000 of the best and most healthy young fellows at the critical stage of their lives for three or five years. Are we not bound to supply them with the medical officers whose first duty in peace time is to tend to their health, to lead them in the way of a healthy life? The Secretary of State has pointed out how extraordinarily improved is the health of the Army; that is largely due to an efficient medical service. Up to the War we had a very efficient service, and the men who joined then are carrying on the good work. The numbers seem to be fading away; and the people are not paying sufficient attention to the seriousness of the situation.
We are bound to fill this gap. It is a difficulty which is common to the Army, Navy and Air Force, and it has been a severe grievance with all the Directors-General of the Army Medical Service. I have had the privilege of knowing them all, and of corresponding with a good many of them on this subject recently. The Secretary of State says that it is a question of money. He said to me in a supplementary answer the other day that the one thing that would cure it was money. I do not think that that sufficiently expresses the position. Money is undoubtedly one of the elements. You have to go into the open market and buy your article You must pay something
either in money or kind that will attract the young medical officer, and, when you are asked to do that, you are at once met with the difficulty which the Financial Secretary mentioned, that other ranks in the Army say, "Why should these people be paid so much better than we are?" The reason is that their market value is different; the young medical student has to give up six or seven years of the best time of his life to a profession which is so grinding that it exterminates or prevents three-quarters of the men who enter it from getting to the end. If at the end of this six or seven years a student manages to get equipped, he is going to see that he gets the best terms for the rest of his life that he can get, and small blame to him for doing it.
When he is asked to join the medical services of the three Forces, he sees, first of all, that he has to be disciplined, and there is nothing a medical man likes less than being disciplined. There are some who will allow themselves to be disciplined, and who would go in for the Service if the other attractions were sufficient, but the one thing a young medical man is intent on—which was not the case with his predecessors 20 years ago—is to have two things at once, a wife and a motor car. He insists on these two things. The Army offers him a position in which he is at once jockeyed out abroad, and, if he happens to come home for a year or two year's service after two or three years abroad, out he goes again for another five years. No young wife will ever stand that. That is one of the difficulties. The other difficulty is that he naturally looks forward to the end of his career. The Army does not offer him a career; it is no career. Lieut.-colonels and majors retire from the medical service at the age of 45 on a bare £1 a day; that fact is a standing advertisement to him not to join the Army. He does not want to be unoccupied at the age of 45, and turned loose to the end of his life. He is looking forward at the age of 45 to being at the zenith of his career, and any youngster who has been through seven years of what is a scientific and humane profession, although he may enjoy the good things of life and the other delights of foreign service for a time, still wants to see good practical professional service.
We have heard it said to-day that the three Services between them are appointing an inter-departmental committee to consider this question. I cannot help remembering that the Warren Fisher Committee undertook the same work six years ago in 1925 and come forward with certain proposals which at the time seemed to do what was required. This is repeating the same process. I am not sure whether it will come to any conclusion unless it goes wider afield. I believe that we shall have to look further afield, and to give a career to these young men if we are to keep them. That career must be something much more than anything that can be offered by the Army alone. There is also the possibility of combining the three Fighting Services. Until recent reforms unfortunately had the disastrous effect of destroying the most magnificent medical service that the world has ever seen—the Indian Medical Service—which was sacrificed on the altar of a false Indian Nationalism, we had looked forward to combining the Indian Medical Service with the services of the Army, Air Force and Navy. That cannot be done; but the Colonial Medical Services might possibly be joined on. I understand that since the War the Colonial Medical Services have managed to fill the bill we had hoped the Army Medical Service might fill. I believe 2,000 young medical men have been enlisted into that Service since the War, which has thus absorbed that section of the medical profession which otherwise would have gone into the Army, Navy or Air Force.
Perhaps we may be able to get some combination between these public services. The State must be master in her own house, and I cannot see why there should not be one comprehensive service. Whatever we do, we must go back upon the downhill course that has been trodden by successive Governments for 12 years. We must deal with this question of the repeated foreign tours of service for the men who join. They will not join if that is the prospect before them, and we shall have to have temporary commissions of five years, to include one tour of foreign service. We may be able to get young medical men to undertake a five years' commission, with a term of foreign service, if we give them
good terms, especially a good gratuity at the end to help them when they are thinking of settling down in private practice. It has also been suggested that we may give them a wider field. The State contributes very largely to the employment of medical officers of health engaged in local government services, and it is possible to envisage some wider field of employment, with a common entry and with ultimate employment in the Civil Service as well as in those Services which take them overseas. In some big conception of that sort we may be able to find a way of supplying the men. Young men will then see that they have a future in front of them and will not have to finish their professional lives at the age of 46, and continue the rest of their existence in idleness on a small pension.

Mr. AYLES: I rise to oppose the provision of the whole of this number of men, not because I and those of my Friends who are associated with me are opposed to the men, but because we are completely and entirely opposed to the tasks that they are asked to perform. In the first place, we hold that to keep such a large number of men for the purposes of war is a sheer waste of our national resources, a waste of the man power as well as of the treasure of the nation. The second point is that the purpose for which these men are enlisted is one that is never achieved. We are told that we have our Army in order that we may have security. If there is one thing that armies do not provide it is security. There are many hon. Members in this House who are military, naval or aeronautical experts. In a perfectly friendly way I want to issue a challenge to them and I ask whether any one of them is prepared to get up and tell the Members of this Committee that they know of any way by which they can guarantee security to the men, women and children of this country. The right hon. Member for Bewdley (Mr. S. Baldwin) has told us that another war would mean the end of civilisation. If that be so, then to talk of security is to talk without a sense of the value of words. It not only means that we cannot guarantee the security of our women and children in this country by armed force, but in the carrying out of our purpose we actually have to menace the security
of the women and children in other countries.
In a House where so much respect is paid to precedent in the matter of procedure, we ought not to be forgetful of the experience of the past in regard to this matter. When our men, surely the finest men we had in the country, relatives of most of us who are in the House, were fighting in the last War, they were compelled to take part in a blockade of the enemy countries, not only up to Armistice Day, but after the Armistice. Why? Because when you are at war there is only one thing that matters, and that is to have a military victory; and in the last War we insisted not only that we should have a military victory, but have a military dominance that would enable us to impose the peace after the Armistice had been declared. So we maintained the blockade.

The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is going wide of the question before us.

Mr. AYLES: I was giving an illustration to show why I was opposed to the provision of these men. We are asked to provide these men in order to use them to conduct war on our behalf if we so desire, and it is because of the nature of war and of the tasks that we should ask them to undertake that I am opposed to providing them. What I was trying to show was that not only do we not provide security for this country, but that we ask them to menace the security of other men, women and children against whom we may be at war. Our experience of the blockade after the Armistice was that it was the women and children who were slain, not only slain by the lack of food but by the lack of medical supplies which we refused to allow to enter the blockaded countries. Therefore, we who take up the pacifist position hold that you cannot justify the existence of an Army on the ground that it brings security to our women and children; and I challenge hon. Members who do know something about military tactics to tell me whether, if we gave them the whole £800,000,000 provided for in our Budget, they could even then guarantee the security of our women and children. If they cannot, I suggest that it is a cruel deceit for us to lead our women and children to believe that they have security. I am opposed to the supply
of these men, because I believe that they cannot safeguard our lives or our markets. I am aware that we must have markets in order to live, and we must also continue to produce in order that we may exist. We have been told that the basis of modern wars is to be found in the economic relations between countries. It is quite true that during the last war we had to safeguard our markets in order that we might live as a nation.
We are told that we must be prepared to spend this money upon the Army because it is necessary as an insurance for our future safety and security, but I will challenge any hon. Member or right hon. Member opposite to prove that we safeguarded our markets as a result of the last war, or as a result of any war. As a matter of fact, the contrary is true, because we have lost our markets as a result of the last war, and those against whom we fought, and whom we are supposed to have beaten, have concentrated on the markets of the world, and they are in possession of those markets in spite of the fact that we wasted so much of our life and treasure during those dreadful years of war. I remember Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman stating 30 years ago that armaments depended upon policy, but in my opinion the reverse is true; policy depends upon armament. The fact that we have armaments dictates our policy, and those armaments are not a security.
10.0 p.m.
I want to see a peaceful policy in this country based upon a progressive, creative conception of international relations. I want us to have a national policy. I want to see us disarmed in the midst of an armed world in order that we may assure the world that is armed and rapidly developing towards madness that we as a nation can live and prosper on the basis of dependence upon public opinion. I am chiefly against armaments and war and against the supply of these men because those things demand a sacrifice that no community ought to demand from any men. It means, in the first place, the sacrifice of human life. No one appreciates more fully than I do the magnificent courage of our men in the Great War. No one appreciates more than I do the sacrifices which they made. The soldier is trained to take the life of others and to save his own life, and that is
where it seems to me that public opinion is in the wrong. The soldier has to protect himself in the trenches by every kind of subterfuge in order that he may be able to take the life of his enemy and save his own and thus achieve military glory. We are training men to slay their fellow men and blow them to bits, and yet those who are killed may be good fathers and exemplary husbands. Because politicians on one side feel that they have to do all this, those on the other side do it for the same reason. If we are going to buy civilisation at that price, then we are building up a civilisation that can never receive the sanction of religion, and a civilisation entirely opposed to all the dictates we have learned from the Gospel. By going to war we do not safeguard honour, but we sacrifice it. We have heard a good deal about secret treaties, and I know that after the War we did not keep the treaties to which we had set our hands though we went into the Great War for the sanctity of a scrap of paper—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Dunnico): I think the hon. Member is going far beyond the scope of the Question before the Committee.

Mr. AYLES: I am opposed to the provision of these men, because that policy will not help us to safeguard truth and honour, but will rather lead to the sacrifice of truth and honour. We cannot safeguard the country in this way, and the only result will be that we shall sacrifice mind and soul. References have been made in this Debate to War books which have been published since the War, and it has been said by those who have had experience of Army life in war time that many of those books are wrong. One must accept that statement and I am glad to accept it, but there are some facts in connection with our Army records that we cannot ignore and which do not lie, and they are the medical officers' reports. I suggest that, reading between the lines, we, as men of the world, know what they mean, and we know what war-time conditions mean for the weak. Those conditions sometimes mean the sacrifice of mind, body, and soul not only of our men, but of
our women as well. I am not prepared to buy my security or the security of my wife and child at such a cost as that, and with all the passionate sincerity of my character I will always protest against the provision of any men or money for such a purpose as we are asked to provide them for in this Army Vote.

Mr. SANDERS: I think it will be convenient if I now reply to criticisms and questions with regard to Woolwich and Enfield. With regard to the point raised by the right hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood), concerning conditions at the factory last year, it will perhaps be remembered that I pointed out that the short time that was organised was arranged for a short period of the year, and was ended by the provision of a new and special kind of permanent work which my predecessor was able to procure for the Woolwich factory—the repair of certain motor vehicles and motor tanks, which kind of work was in addition to the ordinary work of the factory, and will continue to be carried on there. That got rid of the problem of finding work for men in sufficient amount to prevent the necessity of carrying on short time, but it was not sufficient to enable us to retain the 21-year-old young men who have never, as far as I know, had a, guarantee that they would be maintained at the Arsenal beyond the age of 21. If it was found necessary in the past that anyone should leave the Arsenal, it was always understood that these young men would go first, because there was no guarantee that they should be continued after 21, and it was considered that they would have a better opportunity of finding work than older men who might otherwise have had to be displaced.
As the result of all the men and young men who have left the Arsenal during the year, all the men who have been retired because of reaching the age limit, and casualties, men dying and so on, I find that with that wastage, which is quite normal, the numbers now at Woolwich are 5,879, as compared with 6,046 last year at this time. That is only, as I have said, a normal wastage, so that there have been no abnormal discharges from Woolwich, and we have done our utmost to keep our pledge that we would do all that we could to maintain the
existing number there, which number, I might say incidentally, is very much larger than a certain nucleus which was decided upon by the last Government.
With regard to the time-work and piece-work at Enfield, that was undertaken by us, as stated by the hon. Member for Enfield (Mr. W. Henderson), in order to avoid the necessity for discharging men. It was a painful necessity, but it was a necessity that probably will arise at some future time, and if the other side is in office, I trust that, instead of discharging men in those circumstances, they will follow our example. It is much better to have those men earning even a smaller sum at time rates than they would earn at piece rates than to throw them on the streets, and I think the men, although naturally they did not like the reduction, were grateful.
I promised, when this question was raised last year, that I would do my utmost to see that the piece work system came back without discharging any men. As a result of the efforts of the War Office—and I may say I was very ably assisted by the Department concerned—we were able to secure extra work from a Dominion, which has enabled us to go back to the piece work system. On that point, I would like to say that I have personally investigated the matter that the hon. Member for Enfield raised, as to whether or not all the men who used to be on piece work and were put on time work have gone back to piece work, and I am assured that all the men have gone back, but that there has always been a certain section of skilled men at Enfield who have never been on piece work but have been continually raising the question as to whether they could not be changed from time work to piece work. Up to now neither their organisation nor the War Office can find any system on which we can base a piece work rate, and so the time work has to continue, but they are men whose wages are not worse; they are skilled men, and there is no particular hardship in the case.
Then I come to the question of the prospects for the coming year. I am able to assure the right hon. Member for West Woolwich and the hon. Member for Enfield that, as far as we can foresee, there will he sufficient work to maintain the Arsenal and the Enfield factory at
the present strength during the whole of the year without any change of system, without either short time or changing from piece work to time work. I am therefore glad to know that the right hon. Member for West Woolwich will have no sleepless nights on this painful subject and will probably not be worried by his constituents, who are naturally very much interested in this question.
I come to the last point, which is the vexed question of a very special union which is under the very valuable care of the right hon. Member for West Woolwich. I have had some experience of administration, and I have always understood that a direction or a management that knows its business will insist on meeting one body of men to represent the whole of the staff, and will not have different organisations, representing the same kind of men, seeing them at different intervals and putting forward varying demands. The War Office, under our administration, has taken that line, and I think it is the proper line to take in these days, when there is in every sphere of life a painful tendency to split off in all kinds of directions, a tendency which I think all wise men ought to try to restrain as much as possible.
This union at Woolwich represents a certain number of the so-called unskilled men, and it desires to have separate representation and separate rights from all the other industrial staff, who are connected together, no matter whether they are skilled, unskilled, or semi-skilled, under one proper committee. It is not our business to compel this particular union to come into the same committee, nor can we compel the central committee to accept them. It is a quarrel inside the trade union movement, with which we are not able to interfere, but we say this, that when we are dealing with questions of hours of work, conditions of labour, and wages, we are going to prefer to deal with the great national organisation rather than any local, split-off body which for some reason or another will not come into line. All the other unions in the Arsenal with whom we deal as a whole are national unions, responsible unions, unions which have no pretence, but which are based on real membership and real service to their members. We deal with them without any trouble or friction, and our advice from the War
Office is that this local union and the national union should get together and make up their differences, and come to us as a united body. As a small separate body we cannot recognise them for dealing with questions of hours, conditions of labour, and wages at the Arsenal.

Sir K. WOOD: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to put a question to him. May I take it that the reason why the Government refuse recognition of this union is not the fact that it is not affiliated to the Trades Union Congress?

Mr. SANDERS: That is not the reason at all. There was a time when the old Amalgamated Society of Engineers was not affiliated to the Trades Union Congress, but there never was any difficulty, and there never would be any difficulty now.

Mr. CARTER: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) if he is vice-president of that union?

Sir K. WOOD: If I am permitted to answer questions, I shall be very glad to do so, but I am not paid to answer them.

Mr. SANDERS: With regard to the main question, which I think is the most important, namely, the future of these two great workshops, I can say that for the next twelve months their existence under present conditions is, as far as I can see, completely assured.

Lieut.-Colonel WINDSOR-CLIVE: It is rather unfortunate, after the very sensible remarks of the Secretary of State for War, that they have been so little appreciated by some of his followers. Nobody could question the sincerity of his desire for peace, and, when he stated in such very convincing terms that there is a case against unilateral disarmament, I think it ought to have carried weight with anyone who had anything resembling an open mind on the subject. I give full credit to the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Mr. Wellock) and the hon. Member for North Bristol (Mr. Ayles) for the sincerity of their convictions, but I believe them to be utterly mistaken. They believe that if we were completely to disarm, regardless of what other nations are doing, peace would be assured. I do not think
so. If we were to take that course, I believe it would merely be an invitation to anybody who wanted to do so to come and collar our possessions—an invitation of which they would not be slow to take advantage. The hon. Member asked whether the Army gave us security during the Great War. It prevented defeat, and that was what it was meant to do.

Mr. AYLES: My question was as to whether the victors did not lose as much as the defeated in the last War.

Lieut.-Colonel WINDSOR-CLIVE: I do not know whether the hon. Member has studied the terms which Germany would have imposed on us. If he had, I think he would agree that, if we had been defeated, we should have suffered a good deal more than Germany. Of course it is very easy, sitting here in comfort and safety, to talk about disarmament, but, if the hon. Member were an inhabitant of one of the villages on the North-West Frontier of India, exposed to the raids of the tribes of the hills, I do not think he could be very glad to see the total disbandment of the British and Indian armies, so long as those tribes hold the views and employ the methods for which they have so long been notorious. The Secretary of State showed very clearly that unilateral disarmament is a policy that we cannot possible adopt. May I ask him if he would try and exercise his persuasive powers upon his colleague the President of the Board of Trade, with a view to showing him that it is equally futile to pursue a policy of unilateral free imports? The hon. Member for North Bristol, just at the end of his speech, gave me the impression—I may have been mistaken—that he was adopting a rather self-righteous attitude towards soldiers, and suggesting that soldiers were less respectable than other people.

Mr. AYLES: No; that is what I was very careful in endeavouring to avoid, and I do not think that the hon. and gallant Member will challenge that statement. I said that our attitude was not directed against the men, whom we consider to be some of the finest amongst us. Our attitude is that we should save these men from being put into conditions where we ought not to put any man, especially such fine men as these.

Lieut.-Colonel WINDSOR-CLIVE: I can only say that is the impression that
the hon. Member gave me. Soldiers have no more faults than the rest of the community. The Secretary of State has told us that 52 per cent. of those who applied did not come up to the physical standard, and that that was probably due to the influence of the War years. I think that is very likely the case, and, if it is so, I suppose it means that the proportion of rejections on this ground is likely to apply as long as we have recruits coming who were subject as children to the privations of the War years. Evidently there has been a slight improvement, because in the first seven weeks of this year we got something like 2,000 more recruits than in the corresponding period last year, which is satisfactory as far as it goes. We are told that the estimated intake of recruits will only be enough to counterbalance the outflow and that we shall have to continue to make exertions during the whole year.
I should like to make a suggestion. There are some infantry regiments which have no difficulty in getting recruits of a perfectly suitable type. In fact, they have to refuse applications. I wonder whether it will be possible for an infantry regiment in that position to recruit men over the establishment as a temporary measure while there is a shortage. Of course, we have to consider how we can possibly induce recruits to come forward, and the Secretary of State has indicated one way, which is by refraining from saying or doing anything which will discourage men from joining. I believe one of the best ways of getting a better supply of recruits is to make it more certain that, when a man leaves the Colours, he shall get employment in civil life. I notice in the Memorandum of the Secretary of State the statement that the proportion of men who passed through the training centres and got employment immediately was 81.5 per cent. in 1928, 76 per cent. in 1929, and only 69.4 per cent. in 1930. It is rather discouraging to find that the proportion of men getting employment immediately on leaving the training centre is gradually getting less and less.
What we want is that the man who has had a creditable term of service in the Army, Navy or Air Force shall have a better chance of getting employment when
he goes back to civil life than the man who has not had that experience. It is true that we need an extra supply of recruits this year, but that will mean that there will be an abnormal outflow to the Reserve in seven or eight years' time unless some steps are taken to see that there is a fairly even proportion between the number of men enlisting for seven and five years and the number enlisting for three and nine. An abnormal intake of recruits always means a difficulty when those men go to the Reserve, and what we want to aim at is a steady supply every year of more or less the same numbers.
The Secretary of State alluded to the supply of officers, and the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) said he would like to see all officers going through the ranks. He gave us one or two historical examples from times past. He mentioned the French Army in the days of Napoleon, when all officers went through the ranks, and he thought that we ought to follow their example. Assuming that what he said is correct, I do not think that that is a very good example from his point of view, because in the Peninsular War the French Army was beaten in every battle by the British Army, who were officered under an entirely different system. There is also the question of the supply of reserve officers. We have had a very considerable Debate to-night on the Officers Training Corps, but I do not think that anybody has mentioned that it is our only means of getting training for possible reserve officers. I had something to do with the Officers Training Corps in the years before the War, and I know its value. There can be no question that during the War the Officers Training Corps was of the greatest possible value, because at the outbreak of War we had a certain number of people who, at any rate, knew something about the duties of officers. I believe that the Officers Training Corps is an extraordinarily cheap force, from which we get very good value indeed.
Finally, with regard to the numbers in the Army Reserve. The Memorandum says that the strength has declined to 128,700, and that the fall will he more rapid this year. I would point out that the diminution of strength in our Reserves is more serious now than before the War. Before the War we had Special
Reserve infantry battalions to fall back upon. Suppose we had a general mobilisation now, I should like to ask the right hon. Gentlemen how many of those 128,700 men would be required to bring units up to war strength, how many would be left available for supplying drafts later to make good the wastage of war, and, in that event, how long would it be before the Army Reserve was used up altogether, and what would happen them? I have asked this question on many previous occasions, but I have never yet had an answer. We have no Special Reserve battalions to fall back upon when the Army Reserve is exhausted. What is going to happen between the time the Army Reserve is used up and the time recruits are fit to take their places in the ranks? I am very much afraid that if that position ever arises there may be a temptation to use the Territorial Army for the purposes of drafting. To my mind, that would be absolutely fatal. I hope that this matter, which is a very serious one, is really being seriously considered by the right hon. Gentleman and his Department.

Mr. SHAW: As the discussion has taken a turn in which part of the speeches has been devoted to the subject of the Amendment to be moved by the hon. Lady the Member for North Lanark (Miss Lee), I think that it would be better if I answered on the general position, and left the hon. Lady to move her Amendment, and then for me to reply to it. I think that that would be courteous on the part of the Committee. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Ludlow (Lieut.-Colonel Windsor-Clive) has asked a number of questions as to how, in cases of emergency, the present state of the Forces would work out if drafts were called for. I do not think there is any need to fear any immediate emergency, nor do I think there is any need to fear that in case an emergency did arise, there would he any shortage for the immediate moment, and that we should be hampered in sending out the divisions that are ordinarily accepted as being ready for service in the time which has generally been laid down by military authorities.

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: Does that include the medical equipment?

Mr. SHAW: I will deal with the medical services afterwards, if the hon. and gallant Member will permit me. The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. O. Lewis) raised the question of the Officers Training Corps and supported the views of the right hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) in supporting the idea that compulsion should be abolished in the public schools. I have already pointed out that I am Minister for War and not Minister for Education, and I want to have as little to do with the internal life of the schools as I can. I have announced the view of the Government, that for boys at the age of 12, 13 and 14 we shall take no responsibility whatever, and we shall be no party either to compulsion or lack of compulsion. We shall simply have nothing to do with boys of that age, and only in the most modified form possible, in order to enable boys to go to training in camp, shall we have anything to do with boys of 15. If compulsion exists at the beginning of a boy's life in a public school, it is a matter for the parent and the school. I shall have nothing to do with it. The parent and the school must settle between them what the conditions are to be. I understand that objection was also raised by the same hon. Member about my lack of energy in recruiting.

Mr. MACPHERSON: What about the equipment of boys at the age of 15?

Mr. SHAW: Boys of 15 will get no equipment. There will be no recognition so far as equipment is concerned for any boy under 16. I understand that objection has been raised to what has been termed the apathy of the Secretary of State for War and his want of energy in recruiting. The Adjutant-General's Department is responsible for recruiting, and I think the Adjutant-General and his Department are quite capable of doing their own work. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why do they not do it?"] I have already reported to the House that they have tackled the problem, and with very successful results, and that recruits are coming in at an accelerated rate. I am not going, if I can avoid it, to create in this country an impression that there is a violent crisis, which needs extra special attention. I believe that the staff at the War Office is quite competent to do this work, and that it is doing its
work, and I am going to let good rest where it is. The hon. Member for Stour-bridge (Mr. Wellock) will forgive me if I make no reference to his speech, because it will properly come on the subject which is to be raised by the hon. Member for North Lanark (Miss Lee).
The hon. and gallant Member for St. Albans (Lieut.-Colonel Fremantle) has raised a very vital matter and one which, I must admit quite frankly, has not only baffled the present Minister for War but has baffled previous Ministers for War. It is a problem which concerns at the present time not only the War Office but the Air Force and the Navy. It is one of the most difficult problems that the three Ministers have to face, and I agree with the hon. and gallant Member that no one Department alone will be able to face it successfully and arrive at a solution of the difficulty. I have heard with great interest the suggestions that the hon. and gallant Member made as to what will be the possible consequences if these matters are allowed to drift. I heard with the greatest interest his remarks with regard to the terms of foreign service and how they discourage any medical man from taking service in the Army or in the other Services. I can assure him that what he has said will have the closest investigation and attention.
I listened with interest to his remarks about the unbalanced condition of the medical services, where you have the service composed almost entirely of officers of major rank with a very few subalterns at the bottom, and also to what he said about the scandal of South Africa. As to his ideas of the future and his broad general proposition that there should be a medical service so large as to embrace everything in the shape of public medical services, civil, military, naval and air, that is a question rather too big to be dealt with at a moment's notice. We shall have to do the best we can in the circumstances, and I still think that it is largely a case of money. The hon. and gallant Member himself pretty clearly laid it down that owing to the Insurance Acts, which, incidentally, his profession did not welcome very warmly, the young medical man finds himself in a position in which he can very quickly, so far as finance is con-
cerned, be in a better position than if he had joined the Service. I admit that that is the case.
I also noted what the hon. and gallant Member said about the hatred of the young medical man for discipline. My hon. Friends and myself have not a very strong love for discipline if it is carried too far, and I do not think we should blame the young medical man for objecting to discipline. The problem is a difficult one and is not easy of solution. It is a mere platitude to say that it is not unique to one service, and is not to be solved by any easy method. If you had all the wealth of the world and you gave it to the medical service it would create dissatisfaction in other arms of the service, and you would be not at the end but at the beginning of your troubles. I will take note of everything the hon. and gallant Member has said, and the three Services will consider their problems together and endeavour to find a way out of the difficulty, which I quite frankly admit ought not to exist for a moment longer than is necessary. It is a question that has baffled other War Ministers and for the present has baffled me.

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether this departmental committee may possibly be widened in order to consider the possibility of making arrangements with the colonial medical services?

Mr. SHAW: I have said that I have listened with the keenest attention to the suggestions the hon. and gallant Member has made, and I give him my personal assurance that they will be examined to see whether it is possible to work on the lines he has suggested. With regard to the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member for Ludlow to allow certain regiments to recruit beyond establishment in order to balance shortages in other parts of the country, it will be examined, and I will see whether anything can be done to meet the case. I think I have replied to the points raised in the discussion, with the one exception of the point of the abolition of the Army, which I think I had better leave until the Amendment has been moved.

Mr. ANNESLEY SOMERVILLE: I would like to put a further question with
regard to the Officers Training Corps. I understand that permission is withheld up to 15 years of age. Does that mean that boys of 15 in the Corps will be allowed to wear the uniform of the Corps? Can they wear the uniform and carry rifles and receive the grant?

Mr. SHAW: There will be no grant and no equipment for boys of 15. They will be allowed to put on a cap. The payment of grants of money will be confined to boys of 16 and upwards.

Mr. SOMERVILLE: May boys of 15 wear the uniform of their corps?

Mr. SHAW: As uniform is part of their equipment I should say that we could not acknowledge that.

Miss LEE: I beg to move, to reduce the Vote by 130,000 men.
I move this Amendment with very considerable regret. I should be infinitely happier to-night if my duty were merely to congratulate or support a Labour Minister of War who was bringing before the Committee an Army Estimate showing a substantial reduction on the previous year, and I wish to say at the very outset that if this year's Estimate had shown anything which could be considered as in the nature of a genuine reduction, the drastic Amendment standing in my name would never have beer moved. It is with deep concern that some of us see that, far from being called upon to support a reduction in the Army Estimates this year, we are being asked by our own Government and by our own Minister to go into the Division Lobby to-night in support of an Estimate which means, in effect, that the fighting strength and the killing force of the British Army is to be greater than it was last year. I do not think I am making any rash statement, or any statement that cannot be borne out by anyone who cares to analyse in any detail the Estimate that has been given.
I listened with considerable interest to the skill with which Members on the Government benches, and Members of the official Opposition, and members from the buffer state below the Gangway, were able to talk in support of the Estimate without a single one of them referring to the outstanding fact about this Army Estimate—that it does not represent
merely a marking of time in our fighting strength, but a definite advance. Consider the comparison that can be drawn between this Estimate and another Estimate that this House has considered a lot recently, regarding the wages of civil servants. In these Estimates we were told that wages had to be reduced from 4 to 6 per cent., or an average of 5 per cent. We were assured by the Ministers responsible for that reduction that it does not represent any lowering of the standard of life of those workers, but that it is merely a matter of adjustment. We have been told that that reduction merely brings wages into line with the reduction in the cost of living. If that is a fair and proper argument to apply to Civil Service wages, it is also a fair and proper argument to apply to the Estimate now before the Committee. Without touching on the question of the reduction of armaments, and considering merely the maintenance of the status quo, it seems reasonable to consider that comparison, and I am glad to have the moral support of the Secretary of State for War himself on this point, because in the White Paper he says:
In meeting the expenditure on replacements … I have been helped by the fall in the prices of commodities and certain consequential reductions in payments in respect of the cost of living.
If the same reduction had been imposed here as that to which I have already referred, we would have been entitled to look for more than £5,000,000 of a reduction on the total for the fighting services and between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 on these Army Estimates, while merely maintaining ourselves in the present position. Instead of that, we find merely a £500,000 reduction in nominal expenditure, and if we consider, not the nominal amount but the purchasing power, it means we are actually proposing in these Estimates to spend more than was proposed in last year's Estimates. Further, when one leaves the general Estimates and turns to the statistical abstract one find that, unfortunately, there have been reductions in the pay of the Army; there have been reductions on the medical service, on the educational establishment, in the amount for clothing and in the amount for general stores. I look down one column in this return to find those decreases. Then I look down a column opposite to it, which
gives increases, and I find that the outstanding figure of £293,000 of increases is in the column headed "Warlike Stores." An hon. Member has referred to the little pink slips which are in this book as being very helpful in enabling us to see what each of these sums is concerned with, and they enable us to see that, while we are actually increasing our nominal expenditure, apart from the increase in real purchasing power, the increase is almost entirely related to the experimental side of warfare and the mechanisation of the Army.
When I found that, I was tempted to explore the Estimates of preceding years regarding mechanisation. I find that two years ago the late Sir Laming Worthington-Evans—to whom reference has been made by other hon. Members, but I am not an old enough Member to have close personal memories of him—when he introduced the Estimates made a main feature of his speech the mechanisation which was going on in the Army, and stressed the fact that, in that year, an additional £99,000 was being spent in that direction. He went on to say that since 1921 a very definite advance had been made. That does not seem to tally entirely with the general expressions we have heard to-day that this country, among all the nations of the world, was really going forward with a policy of disarmament. Here we had a responsible Minister pointing with pride to the fact that in this, the most modern and deadly side of our preparations for future warfare, we were making a definite advance. He went on to say that not only were we making a definite advance, but that in the next few years even greater progress should be possible owing to the sure foundations which had already been laid. I examined again the Command Paper which is given us by the Minister for War, and I find on a later page he refers to the mechanisation of the Field Artillery and says that we are embarking on a three years' programme that is going to bring the Army to a high pitch of efficiency in this direction. It is rather a sorry comment on our sense of values that we can deride a nation like Russia for carrying on a five years' programme for industrial and economic reconstruction, but pride ourselves on this programme for the mechanisation of the Army. I submit that when hon. Members go into the
Lobby to-night they have definitely got to make up their minds whether they are going to support Estimates which make our Army a stronger fighting force than it was even a year ago.
Turning from the money to the men involved, I looked eagerly at the Estimates to see if there was to be any reduction. I found there was to be a reduction of 100. I understand that is an accident, and the Minister has apologised for it, and said he did not intend it to happen and that he will do his best to see it put right, and all that kind of thing. In this Labour party in the British House of Commons, every Member has told the British public that we stood for radical disarmament, but I do not think there are many individuals on the bench from which I am speaking or on the general benches on this side, who either said or believed that that reduction had to be strictly limited by the reductions that other countries were going to make. This mechanisation can be fairly compared with the rationalisation of industry, and therefore one would expect that there would have been a very considerable reduction in the numbers of men simply by the process of rationalisation. Instead, we find the actual numbers maintained, and, more than that, we find the Minister of War promising this House that he will act as a recruiting sergeant, and will attempt to get the number of recruits increased. Mechanisation has even engulfed this Command Paper, because I cannot imagine that our very kindly Minister of War would have been guilty of a sentence which contains so much irony and is in such gross bad taste, especially coming from this party, that the improvement in recruiting
tends to show that the advantages of life in the Army are being better appreciated.
At the same time that we have an insulting, sardonical, ironical sentence like that put in the Command Paper, we have protests made from every part of the Committee about the slum conditions in which many of the soldiers are forced to live. We also have the statement that, of the men who offer themselves for recruitment, no fewer than 52 per cent. are physically unfit. Again, the Minister was careful to point out that most of those men who offer themselves for recruitment do so
because they believe that they have a reasonable chance of being accepted. So I cannot escape the conclusion that our fighting service is more efficient, more deadly, more highly mechanised than it was even a year ago, and this Debate comes to-day when only yesterday we were talking about a general arbitration clause, when we were saying that never again was there to be war, and that we were going to send all disputes to international arbitration. It shows that the god of chance has a queer sense of humour—

Mr. EDE: Goddess!

Miss LEE: The presiding power in these matters is not a woman. I should hate to think that any woman would want to be associated with an increase in military strength. I am concerned about this Estimate, not only because of the effect on this country, but of the effect in other parts of the world. I was brought up in the belief that, our nation was one of the most peace-loving in the world. It came to me with a shock of surprise when first I travelled on the Continent to find that such sentiments were greeted with shrieks of derision by young Germans, young Austrians, young Frenchmen, young Russians and those of other nationalities. Far from believing that we were a peace loving nation, they regarded us as one of the most aggressive, one of the most predatory, one of the most Imperialistic nations in the world.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I do not want unduiy to restrict this Debate, but I would remind the hon. Member that we had quite a general Debate on the Motion, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," and we had a much more general Debate on Vote A. This is a restrictive Amendment, and we cannot discuss things which are outside it.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. AYLES: May I point out that when I was speaking on the general Vote, I indulged in a general argument which Mr. Speaker said was too wide for the general discussion upon the Estimates,
but would be in order on the Amendment to reduce the number of men. Whereupon, I immediately sat down and said I would reserve my remarks for the place where he suggested they would be more
appropriate. May I suggest that in those circumstances the widest latitude should be given to the hon. Lady?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I cannot accept that interpretation. Mr. Speaker does not rule upon !natters arising in Committee and on more than one occasion has declared to the House that matters in Committee are outside his jurisdiction. I can only say that so long as the hon. Lady keeps to the terms of her Amendment I shall not rule too rigidly, but she must not cover too much ground in presenting her arguments for and against the retention or the present number of men in the Army.

Miss LEE: The last thing in the world I should desire would be to show a belligerent attitude. Earlier in the evening I was informed from the Chair that it was preferable that we should leave the more general discussion to this Amendment; but I will confine my remarks as strictly as I can to arguments which are relevant to the plea I am putting before the House for a reduction of the British Army. I had started to say that in our own minds we believe that we are a thoroughly peace-loving people, though it would seem that we must have tremendous powers of self-deception; but in many quarters abroad there is a very different conception of this country. If we are to make the Disarmament Conference a success next year, it is absolutely essential that we should conquer that feeling which is abroad. We should, not by pacifist or anti-war speeches, but by our actions in this House, show that we are willing to lead the world in a new direction, in the direction of peace. A plea was made from the opposite side of the House that we should try to convert our friends and colleagues abroad to this idea of peace among the nations and disarmament. From what nation in the world do they expect that lead to come? Do they expect it to come from young Germany, which is already partially disarmed, and is beginning to have a rankling feeling of distrust and of resentment, a feeling that it has been cheated under the Treaty of Versailles, and that we are not keeping our word of honour when we said that we were going to disarm? If we do not give a genuine lead in disarmament we shall
see a growth of the warlike spirit there, and we shall have our share of the responsibility.
Reference has also been made to Russia, and to the size of the army there. In Russia, rightly or wrongly, there is a widespread belief that this country is preparing for war, and it is that feeling of hostility, that feeling of fear, that, in turn, encourages large armies in that country. I can see a realistic type of young Russian reading our Parliamentary Debates, reading first the Debate on Monday and then reading this Debate to-day. What we are doing to-day will have a thousand times more influence upon his mind than what we said yesterday. Russians will treat it as another example of what they are pleased to call "British hypocrisy" if we pledge ourselves to general arbitration one day and on the following day vote for Army Estimates which show us in a stronger rather than in a weaker position. I hope hon. Members will believe me when I say that if the Secretary of State for War had brought in Estimates showing any genuine reduction at all, that we on these benches would have been the first to congratulate him.
We know that disarmament is not an easy job. If the Minister replies to us by talking about the unemployment which would result from radical disarmament, I am entitled to say that it would be no more expensive to keep men doing nothing at all than to keep them doing things which we think are damaging and harmful. A Government which had the vigour and boldness to put through a policy of radical disarmament would also have the vigour and boldness to see that there was a saner organisation of our industries, and provide a relationship between the hours of labour and the work to be done under which men displaced from the production of armaments would have a far greater chance of being taken care of than have the men now being displaced from employment in piecemeal fashion, and put in corners while the rest of the nation tries to pretend they are not there. If we did disarm we should have to undertake other necessary national reorganisation and to find a place for these men. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) represents a diametrically opposite point of view,
and he goes about the country saying that the country is going down; he is fixed to the conception of Britain leading the world in the old-fashioned way, and he wants the younger generation to be a mixture of boy scouts and Al Capones. On the other hand, the attitude of the Minister for War reminds me of an awful book that I read as a child, entitled, "How Eric won salvation, or Little by Little." That is a spineless way of getting on. We want the type of positive constructive efforts that are needed for new world conditions. With the Disarmament Conference coming next year and with this country still in many ways the natural leader amongst the countries of the world we plead for our Government to do much more, and at least really begin to do the work which we are called upon to do in preparing for disarmament, not by shuffling about and saying that "What others do we will do," but by showing that we have the courage to take the lead, and we are prepared to take the lead. In doing that, I think the Government would be showing a far greater sense of self-confidence in our nation and the integrity of our people. In a properly-organised world we do not need to fear Disarmament, and if we have the courage to lead the world in Disarmament we shall still occupy an honourable place among the nations; but if we go dribbling along in the way represented by these Estimates with the Minister of War being little more than a passenger in the Department for which he is responsible, then it fills some of us with despair not only for the hope of peace throughout the world, but for the future of our nation.

Mr. SHAW: The hon. Lady finished her speech by the statement that I was merely a passenger in the Department. I am accustomed to kindness on the part of comrades, and it shows a truly comradely spirit, how pacific we are, how kindly we should be if we were a Socialist—

Miss LEE: I beliee the right hon. Gentleman is a passenger not because of himself, but in spite of himself, and that if he were on this bench, he would be as belligerent in the cause of disarmament as we are on this bench.

Mr. SHAW: That is another way of suggesting that I am a passenger because I have not sufficient ability to be anything else. It is another kindly way of the comradely spirit. Let me turn to the facts of the case, because there is no monopoly in this House of a desire to abolish war, and there are people who believe that the policy suggested by the hon. Lady is precisely the worst policy in the world—persons just as consistent and with perhaps as much knowledge of the problem as the hon. Lady herself, who know the nationalities she has spoken of as well as she does, who have conversed with them as well as she has, and have heard remarks which do not exactly coincide with her experience.

Mr. MAXTON: Talk to Hitler.

Mr. SHAW: I can talk to Hitler if need be. We are told that this Amendment would not have been moved if the Government had proposed a substantial reduction, but I thought the policy of the hon. Lady and her friends was to abolish the Army. Then what is the use of talking about the Amendment not being moved if a substantial reduction had been proposed? It is a contradiction in terms. I much prefer the attitude of the hon. Member for North Bristol (Mr. Ayles), who frankly says that he would prefer us to be an unarmed nation in an armed world. That is frank, that is straight, that is correct, that is comradely, and one knows where he is. He makes no bones about saying that if such a thing had been done, he would not have objected. He says he remains convinced that the proper way for our country is to be an unarmed nation in an armed world. We know exactly where he stands and what he means.
Now let me look at substantial reductions. In 1921 the Estimates of this country stood at £82,000,000; to-day they stand at £39,930,000. That is a reduction of well over 50 per cent., well over half. Is there any nation in Europe that can show a record like that? What is the use of saying that if we show an example, other people will follow. There is the example, and other people have not followed. Then what is the use of pretending that facts do not exist? We do not gain anything by shutting both eyes and talking with eloquent phrases
falling out of our mouths. What is the use of them if we will not look facts in the face? There are the facts. This country has shown an example, it has shown a desire, and that example and that desire have not been followed, and all the talk and all the eloquence in the world will not get rid of the brutal facts. I hate as much as anyone in this House to use a brutal fact to destroy a beautiful theory, but there is the fact, and I cannot shut my eyes to it. We are told that the Russians think we are going to prepare for war against them. The Russians think that every other country in Europe is going to prepare for war against them. There is no more danger of our going to war with Russia to-day than ever there was. There was a greater danger, perhaps, a few years ago, but does anyone seriously believe in Russia that this country is going to prepare for war against them?

Mr. LEES: If hon. Members opposite had their way it would happen tomorrow.

Mr. SHAW: I have nothing to do with hon. Members opposite. I am asking a plain question—is there any sensible person in Russia who believes that this country is preparing for war against them? Certainly not. We are told that there is only a [...]06 per cent. reduction of men in the Army. Is that to be wondered at The statement of the Government has been perfectly plain for the last two years, that unilateral disarmament has not produced the effect it was expected to produce. It has gone as far as it can go in the opinion of the Government. It is not producing the effect we desire, and in our opinion it is not making for universal world peace. There are some who believe that you cannot act as an individual nation with success, and that the only way to produce peace in the world, the only way to produce disarmament in the world, is not by unilateral action, but by combined international action by agreement. We are told that one day we are proposing pacts which will abolish war and the next day we are producing Estimates. I made a statement right at the beginning of my speech to the effect that this Government is prepared, not only to enter into compacts with other nations for the reduction of armaments, but to take the lead in
making arrangements, and I repeat that we are ready and willing at any time to take the lead with other nations in a disarmament that would be by agreement, which in my opinion and in the opinion of the Government is the only right way in which we can arrive at peace in the world. Let us have no more talk of hyprocrisy. Hypocrisy is not confined to any one section. None of us have a monopoly of clear-cut, snow-white purity. We are all more or less spotted by the world, and, when I hear any person protesting too loudly about his or her purity, his or her conscience, and his or her soul, my experience has led me to distrust them.

Mr. MAXTON: I have heard you talk about honesty more than anyone else.

Mr. SHAW: I thought that the hon. Gentleman would have to intervene. He, of course, stands on the mountain quite alone, absolutely unapproachable, the one white lamb in the whole world. I give him my respect, and advise him to keep his comments to himself for the moment while I am dealing with arguments that have been used. To me they appear to be uncalled for and pharisaical. After all, as I say, I do not claim to be unspotted by the world; I do not claim to be absolutely pure and snow-white; but I have lived my life in the Labour movement, and the men I have worked among trust me, and that is something.

Mr. SANDHAM: What about the cotton trade?

Mr. SHAW: The hon. Gentleman is one of the few men in the House with whom I do not care to argue. When we are asked where we expect the lead to come from in disarmament, my answer is in these figures. We have given a lead. We are prepared to continune to lead. We are prepared at any moment either to take the initiative or to work with others in a general scheme for a comprehensive disarmament by agreement. Anyone who questions that after the work done by the Foreign Secretary must be guilty of not giving credit where credit is due. We may be hypocrites in the eyes of some of our foreign colleagues. Whatever we are, there is no hypocrisy about a diminution of more than 50 per cent. in the time I have. spoken of, and there is absolutely no
challenge to the statement I have made that there is no nation on earth amongst the principal nations that can show a record like it. Facts are greater than mere theories. There is the blunt, startling fact—50 per cent. of reduction unmatched by any large nation in the world. What is the use of talking about our hypocrisy in view of the figures? [Interruption.] I wish our friends would try for once to be fair to their people. I have never understood the frame of mind that wants to be generous to everyone except its own. It is beyond me. Does anyone doubt that the same developments have been going on in other nations that are going on in this? Does anyone who has consulted the facts and figures, does anyone who has access to international documents doubt it? Can there be in any part of the House a single doubt that our disarmament policy has been an example to the world? What is the use of pretending that it is not so? Rather come and help the Government to get what it desires, an arrangement of an international character, which is the only way in which we can really disarm the world. You cannot do it by unilateral action and the proof is evident to anyone who consults the League of Nations annuals. Anyone who looks at the figures, and studies the developments knows that what I am saying is true. The Government position is plain. It is a pacifist Government but not necessarily an unresisting Government. It will move Heaven and earth, as it has done, to get agreement internationally. It will take the initiative in getting an agreement which will mean a real reduction of armaments. But in view of the fact that unilateral action has not had the result that we hoped for and that we have not produced by our example what we were told we should produce, we ask the House to agree with us that the only way to get success is by international agreement and arrange with other people for a diminution of armaments which will make the world secure.

Mr. BRACKEN: Those of us who listened to the speech of the Secretary of State for War and noted his unworthy gibes and jeers against the hon. Lady the Member for Northern Lanark (Miss Lee) must have felt that he was doing penance for the disingenuousness
of years. For years he came to the House and made speeches like that of the hon Member for Northern Lanark, and now he rates her to-night in long heavy and rather truculent tones for making a speech such as he used to make a few years ago. The right hon. Gentleman is, to adopt the words of the poet,
round as a globe and bluff in every chink,
and his tenure as Secretary of State for War has been one long exhibition of humbug which is unrivalled in these Islands. When he comes down to the House and asks us to accept him as a great protagonist of peace and economy, he is asking too much of human nature. We look at him to-night, and we think he is like a great whale floundering in crocodile tears.

HON. MEMBERS: Withdraw!

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That kind of language is not strictly out of order, but, in the interests of ordered and peaceful debate in this Committee, I must ask the hon. Member to speak in language more subdued.

Mr. BRACKEN: I apologise for saying that the right hon. Gentleman is like a floundering whale. If I have used any excess of irregular language, I can only say the excuse is the right hon. Gentleman's own performance.

Mr. MAXTON: I do not want to continue this Debate on lines which, I think, are quite unjustified by anything which was said by the hon. Lady who moved the Amendment from these benches to-night. I regret that the Secretary of State for War has so badly lost his temper over a matter which might have been discussed very seriously and in an intelligent way. He points out to me that the Army Estimates have been reduced by 50 per cent. since 1921. I am not such a youngster in the House as not to know that there have been several Governments in office during that period, and I am afraid that he cannot take any credit for disarmament carried out by his predecessors.
The matter at issue is not one of how much we have reduced, but—and it is what we want seriously to be discussed by this House and by the country—whether it is not possible, by taking
bigger steps still to get the nations of the world to see that the nation which has the greatest Imperialist history of any country in the world and the greatest record of conquest in the world, the nation that has dominated ultimately by force the greatest territory and the greatest population in the world, has reached a stage when it realises that a true Internationalism is better than a strong Imperialism. We can only base a sound Internationalism on a disarmed world when we ourselves, as the greatest offenders and the greatest aggressors, are prepared to give definite evidence to the world that we are ready to make such a drastic reduction in our preparations that no nation in the world need fear us. That is our purpose in bringing forward our Amendment to-night.
There was no necessity for any heat or accrimony to be raised in the matter at all, and no necessity to throw out charges of hypocrisy because my hon. Friend referred to the fact that the Russian people believed that our attitude towards peace was hypocritical, because, while talking about peace, we maintain the biggest navy in the world and a very efficient and up-to-date army; we are carrying out experiments along other directions in order to make war more effective and deadly, and we are carrying on a forward policy in connection with our air service. The nations of the world see we are still a warlike nation, making warlike preparations, and Russia regards the preparations of Great Britain as being very menacing to her future welfare. The right hon. Gentleman may say that while this Government are in office there is no danger of that. He does not know what his tenure of office may be. In any case, I have very grave recollections of the part that he played in the Labour movement during the late War, and I would not regard him as being one of the great pacifists either at that time, the present time or at any time in the near future. I support the Motion, and I hope that the Committee will support it wholeheartedly.

Sir ROBERT HORNE: I have listened with a little surprise to the speech of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton). [An HON. MEMBER: "You have only just come in!"] I heard the speech, and I am always delighted to hear his speeches. There is no oratory in the House which I more enjoy. In
the speech which be has just delivered the hon. Member has forgotten certain very serious factors. I recall in particular the broadcast which the Prime Minister gave to the world, and to the United States in particular, at the beginning of the Naval Conference which assembled not many months ago in this country. He pointed out that we had reduced our forces both in the Army and the Navy to a far greater extent than any other country, and that we had got into such a position of weakness that we were bound, if other countries did not follow us, not only not to reduce further, but that we should have to consider an increase of our military strength. That was a striking demonstration of the effect that has been produced upon the mind of the Prime Minister by a close study of the armaments of the world.
I am as peacefully inclined as any Member of this House, and I am prepared to vie with my hon. Friend in the desire to see armaments decreased everywhere, but there is nothing that so conduces to war as an appearance of weakness. You are not going to reduce the armaments of other powers by entirely disposing of your own. There is an old fable, which my hon. Friend will recollect, of a fox which lost its tail. It did very valiant service in trying to induce other foxes to believe that the loss of a tail was a great advantage to a fox, but the other foxes did not believe it, and they kept their tails. It is certain that if we go on diminishing our strength, the only result will be that we shall become an object of such weakness that every other country wail take advantage of us.
One hon. Member mentioned the case of Russia. Russia to-day is increasing its armaments more than any other country in the world, and it is doing it upon the most fallacious premises that have ever been put before any country. Russia controls all the news that reaches its own people, and never are the people of Russia allowed to believe that any diminution of armaments is going on in the world. On the contrary, they are allowed to believe that all the other nations are increasing their armaments for the purpose of destroying them. Is there any hon. Member opposite, even the most ardent believer in Russia, who
gives any credence to the statement which the Russians have put before their people, that the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) and M. Poincaire in France have arranged a great attack upon Russia by military force? Is there any hon. Member opposite whb believes the story spread abroad in Russia that a certain gentleman, who is now proved to have been in Germany all the time, has been in Moscow trying to stir up trouble?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The Debate seems to be getting far beyond the subject of the Amendment.

Sir R. HORNE: I have only followed the suggestion which came from the hon. Member for Bridgeton. The point is that Russia has been stirred into military preparations by the most fallacious assertions ever made by a Government to its people, and the sooner we realise that it is necessary to keep our military forces in a state of preparation to resist the activities of hostile forces the greater will be our own security and the prospect of peace for the world.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I desire to put a point of view which has given me considerable anxiety. I intend to vote for the Amendment. It may be perfectly true that our Army is less than it was, but we must not forget the process which is going on, not only in the Army but throughout industry as a whole. Our production has increased but the number of men employed has decreased. It is the same in war; our capacity to kill is greater, although the number of men engaged is less, because of modern mechanised machinery. I am disturbed from the point of view of my constituency. Let me put this view before my colleagues on this side of the House. I do not address the Tories or the Liberals because their views on military matters were made up years ago, whereas we of the Labour party are comparative new comers into the political arena. You say that disarmament must be done by international agreement. That must take years and years. Indeed, you say that our example has not been followed and that until we give an international agreement we must have an Army, a Navy and an Air Force. I ask my colleagues on this side of the Committee: Who is to be in that Army?
If you go round the Labour benches and ask each individual Member if his son is in the Army, you will find that there is not one. Ask anyone who has been a leader in the Labour movement—not one of their sons is in the Army. But go to a poor constituency like mine and you will see hundreds and hundreds of young lads coming home for leave at Christmas and other times. It is the poor who are driven into the Army.
If we must have an Army why is the career reserved for the poor? Is it because constituents who file into the Army like to kill better than the rich? Not by a long chalk. These men like the joys of life as much as anyone. What you are doing is asking other people to do dirty, cruel work that you think beneath your own kith and kin. I have never asked a man to join in a trade dispute or strike unless I took part in it myself. I am asking no men to pass Votes for an Army that none of them believe in as a career for themselves; I am asking no man, who is driven by unemployment to enter an Army, to kill other men.
Behind strikes and lock-outs what is it that beats the men, and prevents them from winning? It is not the police, but the knowledge that there is an armed force, behind them. You ask people who are unemployed, people living in the slums, people who have nothing to defend but their rags, to do this killing. You do it by proxy. It is not honest, not straight, not decent, not comradeship. I say to the Secre-

tary for War, "What does your comradeship mean to them?" This is not comradeship of the poor and needy. It is a shocking thing to do and a disgrace. If we are to vote for an Army I hope that the occupants of the Front Bench—the Secretary for Mines for instance—will send their sons into the Army to show an example in killing.

Major GLYN: Now we have an opportunity to judge what is the opinion of certain hon. Members opposite with regard to the Forces. I think we ought to be grateful to the Secretary of State that he has maintained the efficiency of the Army, as he has done. The hon. Lady who moved the Amendment suggested that the efficiency of the Army should be let down. But her Amendment would still leave a small proportion of the Army, and she will agree that, whatever the numbers, they should have every chance of acting efficiently in competition with other countries which have a most efficient military machine. I should hate it to be left unsaid by someone who has spent some years in the Army that there are not in the Army the sons of most enthusiastic Members of the Labour party. I have frequently met them, and I know that it is so. Moreover, I have yet to learn that those who serve their country do so for the purpose of killing. [Interruption.]

Question put, "That a number, not exceeding 18,800, all ranks, be maintained for the said Service."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 19; Noes, 216.

Division No. 188.]
AYES.
11.45 p.m.


Ayles, Walter
Lees, J.
Simmons, C. J.


Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley)
Longden, F.
Stephen, Campbell


Beckett, John (Camberwell, Peckham)
McShane, John James
Wellock, Wilfred


Buchanan, G.
Maxton, James
Winterton, G. E. (Leicester, Loughb'gh)


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Messer, Fred
Wise, E. F.


Kelly, W. T.
Sandham, E.



Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern)
Scrymgeour, E.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—




Mr. Brockway and Mr. Kinley.


NOES


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Benson, G.
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Bean, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayrshire)


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman
Bullock, Captain Malcolm


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro')
Birkett, W. Norman
Burgess, F. G.


Ammon, Charles George
Bowen, J. W.
Butler, R. A.


Arnott, John
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Caine, Derwent Hall


Aske, Sir Robert
Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W.
Campbell, E. T.


Attlee, Clement Richard
Bracken, B.
Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S.W.)


Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston)
Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Charleton, H. C.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley)
Bromfield, William
Chater, Daniel


Batey, Joseph
Brooke, W.
Church, Major A. G.


Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood
Brothers, M.
Clarke, J. S.


Bennett, William (Battersea, South)
Brown, C. W. E. (Notts, Mansfield)
Colville, Major D. J.


Compton, Joseph
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Remer, John R.


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George
Richards, R.


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Lathan, G.
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Crookshank, Capt. H. C.
Law, Albert (Bolton)
Romerll, H. G.


Daggar, George
Law, A. (Rossendale)
Rosbotham, D. S. T.


Dallas, George
Lawrence, Susan
Rowson, Guy


Daiton, Hugh
Lawson, John James
Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)


Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)
Leach, W.
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset, Yeovil)
Lee, Frank (Derby, N.E.)
Sanders, W. S.


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Lewis, Oswald (Colchester)
Sawyer, G. F.


Dawson, Sir Philip
Lewis, T. (Southampton)
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Llewellin, Major J. J.
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Dudgeon, Major C. R.
Lloyd, C. Ellis
Sherwood, G. H.


Dugdale, Capt. T. L.
Locker-Lampson, Com. O.(Handsw'th)
Shield, George William


Dukes, C.
Logan, David Gilbert
Sh[...]aker, J. F.


Duncan, Charles
Longbottom, A. W.
Sinclair, Sir A. (Caithness)


Ede, James Chuter
Lovat-Fraser, J. A.
Sitch, Charles H.


Edmondson. Major A. J.
Lunn, William
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Edwards, E. (Morpeth)
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)


Elliot, Major Walter E.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Smith, Rennle (Penistone)


Everard, W. Lindsay
Macdonald, Sir M. (Inverness)
Smith, Tom (Pontefract)


Ferguson, Sir John
McElwee, A.
Smith, W. R. (Norwich)


Foot, Isaac
McEntee, V. L.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Freeman, Peter
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
Southby, Commander A. R. J.


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Mander, Geoffrey le M.
Strauss, G. R.


Ganzoni, Sir John
Manning, E. L.
Sullivan, J.


Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)
Margesson, Captain H. D.
Sutton, J. E.


Gibson, H. M. (Lancs. Mossley)
Marley, J.
Thomson, Sir F.


Gill, T. H.
Marshall, Fred
Thurtle, Ernest


Glassey, A. E.
Mason, Colonel Glyn K.
Tinker, John Joseph


Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Mathers, George
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Gossling, A. G.
Middleton, G.
Toole, Joseph


Gower, Sir Robert
Milner, Major J.
Townend, A. E.


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B.
Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon


Greene, W. P. Crawford
Montague, Frederick
Viant, S. P.


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Colne)
Morley, Ralph
Wallace, Capt. D. E. (Hornsey)


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Hackney, S.)
Wallace, H. W.


Grundy, Thomas W.
Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.)
Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert


Gunston, Captain D. W.
Muff, G.
Warrender, sir Victor


Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)
Murnin, Hugh
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermilne)


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Nathan, Major H. L.
Welsh, James (Paisley)


Hall, Capt. W. G. (Portsmouth, C.)
Naylor, T. E.
Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge)


Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn)
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Westwood, Joseph


Hartington, Marquess of
Noel Baker, P. J.
White, H. G.


Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
O'Connor, T. J.
Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)


Hayes, John Henry
Oldfield, J. R.
Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)


Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff, S.
Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston)
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield)
Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley)
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Herriotts, J.
Palin, John Henry
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth)
Paling, Wilfrid
Wilson, J. (Oldham)


Hoffman, P. C.
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Hopkin, Daniel
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Horns, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Phillips, Dr. Marion
Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount


Hunter, Dr. Joseph
Picton-Turbervill, Edith
Womersley, W. J.


Jenkins, Sir William
Pole, Major D. G.
Wood, Major MeKenzie (Banff)


John, William (Rhondda, West)
Potts, John S.
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton


Johnston, Thomas
Price, M. P.
Young, R. S. (Islington, North)


Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Ramsay, T. B. Wilson



Kennedy, Rt. Hon. Thomas
Rathbone, Eleanor
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Raynes, W. R.
Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr. Thomas Henderson.


Original Question put, and agreed to.

PAY, ETC.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £9,343,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Pay, etc., of His Majesty's Army at home and abroad, excluding His Majesty's Indian Possessions (other than Aden), which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1932.

Mr. SIMMONS: I beg to move, "That Sub-head A be reduced by £63,300."
I move this Amendment in order to register my protest against the linking up of religion with war, and against com-
pulsory church parades. As an old "Tommy," I know by personal contact with those who were forced to attend these church parades what the feeling used to be in the Army. The experience of my Army colleagues, who were all of the lower ranks, was that there was more blasphemy than religion about compulsory church parades. The men were between the devil and the deep sea, for if they dodged church parades, they were given dirty fatigues like washing greasy dixies and cleaning out latrines. The feeling in the Army about compulsory church parades was therefore very strong. The men detested the idea of compulsory
attendance at church. On Sunday nights, when they were free, they could be seen wending their way to the churches of their own denominations. By moving this Amendment I am not attacking religion or suggesting that religion should be denied to the men who are serving in His Majesty's forces, if they want it. I carefully refrained from moving a reduction in the number of chaplains. I am moving to delete only the remuneration of the chaplains, so that if they still desire to carry on their ministrations to the troops without pay, there will be nothing to prevent them doing it, and they will be following the example of their Master.
Many chaplains I met during the War were very fine fellows; they took risks and cheered up the men, giving them cigarettes and words of comfort. The attitude of the chaplains was quite different from that of the old ladies who used to go round the hospitals saying, "Well, Tommy, don't you want to get better quickly and go back and kill some more Germans?" If you said "Yes," you received two packets of cigarettes; if you said "No," you received none. That was not the spirit of the chaplains with whom I came in contact. My point is that by the very nature of their official connection with the Army, the chaplains have to compromise their Christianity. One of the best of them, if not the best, "Woodbine Willie," towards the end of the War repudiated the action he himself had taken during the War—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The point before the Committee is whether we should have paid chaplains or not; and it is not in order to put forward suggestions as to what is and what is not Christianity.

Mr. SIMMONS: On a point of Order. I desire to keep within your Ruling—

The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN: My Ruling is perfectly clear. I cannot allow a speech to be made which may lead to a Debate on whether Christianity supports war or is opposed to war. The question before us is the very simple one whether this money should be granted to chaplains or not, and the hon. Member must confine himself to that point.

Mr. SIMMONS: I am trying to put forward reasons in support of my contention that the official recognition of Army chaplains, the official control of Army chaplains by the War Office, should be abolished. I object to militarism and Christianity being mixed up, and I am attempting to quote the view of one of the best Army chaplains during the War, who, after the War, said that on thinking things over he could not reconcile—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member himself pointed out only a few moments ago that he had no objection to chaplains and that he was only opposing the payment of chaplains.

Mr. SIMMONS: I was objecting to the official connection between the chaplains and the Army, the official connection and the official control. I was pointing out that as long as there is such official control they are precluded from teaching the true principles of Christianity.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am not prepared to allow that Debate to take place. Whether they are teaching the true principles of Christianity is a question that does not arise here. The question is whether this sum of money should be voted for the purpose named, and the Debate must keep to that point.

Mr. WISE: Is it not in order to put reasons to the Committee why the State should not pay chaplains in the Army? That is the point the hon. Member is trying to put.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It is perfectly in order for the hon. Member to give reasons why this money should not be voted for a specific purpose, but it is not in order to embark on a Debate as to whether Christianity is compatible with war. That would lead to an indefinite Debate and one that, if allowed to be developed, would go far beyond the scope of this Estimate.

Mr. JAMES HUDSON: Is it not the case that the chaplain is paid in order to teach Christianity to the men, and if it can be proved that he cannot, by the nature of his office, teach Christianity to the men, may it not be argued that he should not be paid?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is not a matter capable of proof in this Committee.

Mr. SIMMONS: Then I will continue along the lines that if chaplains are to be appointed they should be paid by the Churches to which they belong and controlled by those Churches in order that they may have complete freedom as to what they preach at Church parades and in carrying out their duties. If that were done, the Church would be freed from a very awkward position in the event of the outbreak of another war. As long as the Church can appoint men—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is now trying to evade my Ruling. The question with which he is now dealing is not under the control of the Government.

Mr. SIMMONS: If the Government pay, they control what the chaplains preach and, in doing that, we are likely to have a repetition of what happened before when the Church crucified Christ on the Cross of Armaments—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member must not proceed along those lines.

Mr. SORENSEN: I beg to second the Amendment.
I do so because I think it is wrong that the State should pay ministers of religion. Under this Vote, we are proposing to spend £63,000 on what is undoubtedly a type of officer. While in many other directions the Government say that they cannot afford to pay just wages in other departments of the State, they are now inviting us to vote this money, and I think we are entitled to ask whether we are getting value for our money in regard to this particular type of officer. It is well known that chaplains are recognised as belonging to the officer class. I know that an army chaplain is supposed to represent the religious department of the War Office, and it is not surprising to find that, in those circumstances, the average soldier looks upon religion as a sort of sentimental habit like collecting stamps or cigarette cards. I seriously suggest that we are not getting value for our money. If we want certain officers
to perform the task of seeing to the creature comforts of the soldiers and preach kindliness to the men we should make it plain that the money is being voted for that particular purpose. To engage these men as chaplains to preach religion and to circumscribe and indicate that they must preach a certain class of religion is to engage them under false pretences on the one hand and to impose blasphemy upon them on the other.
My second point is that it is not a wise spending of public money to spend £63,000 on employing this section of the officer class to preach a diluted and perverted type of religion. It would be far better to employ the money in engaging certain types of officers who will say that it is a high task to prepare for war. I am not suggesting that there are not those who sincerely take up that position, but I am pleading that if we want the particular function that these chaplains are supposed to fulfil performed thoroughly, we ought not to engage Christian ministers at all.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I have little doubt that we cannot debate whether Christianity is compatible with war on an Amendment of this kind. If I allowed that to be discussed, I might have to allow some other hon. Member to get up and denounce Christianity itself, and there would be no end to the Debate. The discussion must be kept within reasonable limits.

Mr. SORENSEN: I would not dream of arguing with you on this point in this Chamber, but I am really arguing as to whether we are getting value for money. I am arguing that we are not getting it, and that we cannot get it, in this connection, and therefore we are wasting our money. In these times of national stringency we must exercise the greatest economy, and here is one very obvious way of saving £63,000 or of employing it to much better use. I am certain that many hon. Members opposite could think of many better ways in which this money could be spent than in the employment of what sometimes they themselves no doubt think is a third kind of sex. I do not want to argue the matter now—it would be out of place altogether—but I am simply saying that we should face this question from the standpoint of efficiency and of value for money. It is
late, and I have lost my train, but I do not wish further to detain the Committee.
I will say, in conclusion, that, after all, the chaplains whom we employ now are simply officers empowered to employ religious coercion or, on the other hand, ministers of religion who are employed to sanctify the weapons of destruction. Have we got in these chaplains what we need to give the Army the right inspiration, such as a late writer described in a poem during the War, when he said:
Ho! A man can do some killing when he's been horn again.
That sort of religion is to me absolutely degrading and blasphemous; it outrages religion. Yet what is it that we want from these chaplains? We want efficiency from them, chaplains who will do their job well, who will enable those who join the ranks to be filled with a real sense of the dignity of their occupation and the valuable function they are performing for humanity; and, that being so, I really feel that this money might be spent in some better way.

Mr. SHAW: I hope not all Members here will lose their trains. This £63,000 covers a number of denominations. I cannot answer for the Roman Catholic, whether he considers his priest is as good a priest whether he is in the Army or not; that is for him. I cannot answer for the Nonconformist, whether he thinks he is the better for the ministrations of a Nonconformist minister; that is for him. I cannot answer for the Established Churchman, neither can I answer for the religion which is older than any of them. All that I know is that, so far as I can see, these men do their work efficiently. A man must live, and in the present circumstances he must have money to live. It is quite wrong to assume that in doctrinal matters these men are under the instructions of the War Office. I have the honour to be Minister of War, and I can assure the hon. and reverend Gentleman who has just spoken that I have opportunities of judging whether these men would be prepared to allow even a hint of any instruction from the War Office as to the doctrine that they should preach. On the whole I think the influence is good. I am positively certain, so far as one denomination is concerned, that it would bitterly resent the taking of these matters out of the hands of the
minister, and I ask the Committee to vote in favour of this amount for the service for which it is put down.

Mr. SORENSEN: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman a question? Would he object to an arrangement whereby the chaplains were provided by the denominations and paid by the denominations?

Mr. SHAW: I cannot answer hypothetical questions. The point is whether the custom should be maintained, and I advise the Committee to maintain it.

Major GEORGE DAVIES: I cannot let the speeches of the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment pass without any comment from these benches. Even though you, Mr. Dunnico, have managed to keep their speeches in order, it is deplorable that such speeches should be made on this topic in the spirit in which they were made. The men in this Service have taken on a certain job, just as those in other walks of life do. I happen to be the father of a cadet at Dartmouth, and, when I was down there recently, I had the opportunity of attending a service and listening to the ministrations of the chaplain. All I can say, as the father of a small boy under those conditions, is that it is a great gratification to a parent to think that he has the advantage of such ministrations and such sermons as that to which I had the privilege of listening. I do not believe that there is a Member in this House, including the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment, who would suggest for a moment that, because a man took on the responsibilities of this particular professoin, he should he ruled outside those ministrations which many of us value so highly. I only wish to protest against the tone of the speeches that have been delivered in opposition to this Vote.
Question, "That Subhead A be reduced by £63,000," put, and negatived.

WORKS, BUILDINGS AND LANDS.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £2,676,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Works, Buildings, and Lands, including military and civilian staff, and other charges in connection therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1932.

HALF-PAY, RETIRED PAY AND OTHER NON- EFFECTIVE CHARGES FOR OFFICERS.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £3,987,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Rewards, Half-Pay, Retired Pay, Widows' Pensions, and other Non-effective Charges for Officers, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1932.

Mr. O. LEWIS: I desire to make an appeal to the Secretary of State for War with regard to the half-pay set out in Sub-heads B and C of Vote 13. If the Committee will look at the opposite page to that on which this Vote appears, that is to say, page 254, they will see a note at the foot of the page describing how this half-pay has been arrived at and commenting on the fact that it was reduced in consequence of the fall in the cost of living since 1st July, 1919. It has been suggested before that the basis of the cost of living figures, which are used for various purposes, is not just as regards various humble forms of labour. That is a question which obviously does not arise here, but however fair or unfair those cost of living figures may be for the purpose for which they were originally designed, that is as an estimate of the budget of an ordinary working-class home, they are utterly out of relation to the purpose for which they are here being used. If we had to consider what has to be paid for with the half pay of these officers, such items as education for their children, Income Tax, house repairs, insurance, domestic, health, dental and medical treatment—those are the principal items that it has to cover. They are not taken into consideration in arriving at the cost of living figures. I have seen it stated on good authority, and I have not seen it contradicted, that these are stationary at somewhere about 52 per cent, above the pre-War cost. They have not gone down in the last 18 months or two years. An injustice is being done to these officers. It is not a matter that the Secretary of State can decide at a moment's notice, but I ask him to consider very seriously whether some more reasonable method of arriving at the coats that this half pay has to cover can be designed than the present cost of living figures, which I think I have shown to the satisfaction of any reasonable person do not apply in this case.

Mr. CARTER: I find on page 256 reference is made to unemployed Field-Marshals, £1,656 a year. We find that Generals and Lieut.-Generals and soforth are put on retired pay from half pay, but Field-Marshals unemployed remain on the half-pay list and are not placed on the retired list at a prescribed age the same as other officers from Generals downwards. I should like to know why this is. I find that there were five unemployed in 1930 and five in 1931.

Mr. SHAW: With regard to the first question that was raised, I think that the hon. Member will realise that the principle goes through the whole of the Services and through the whole of the Civil Service as well, and that payment of bonus is now being made at 52 per cent. above the ordinary rates to cover the cost of living, and that this further drop is based on the principle that was adopted in fixing the bonus rate. It is impossible for me to promise to consider the matter favourably. I will consider any matter which is raised in this House, but I think that I should not be doing either the House or myself justice if I said I was going to promise to consider the matter favourably. The fact of the matter with regard to the Field-Marshals is that there is only a technical difference in terms; whether you use one term or the other, the payment will be the same.

PENSIONS AND OTHER NON-EFFECTIVE CHARGES FOR WARRANT OFFICERS, NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS, MEN, AND OTHERS.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £4,517,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, and Kilmainham Hospital; of Out-Pensions, Rewards for Distinguished Service, Widows' Pensions, and other Non-Effective Charges for Warrant Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, Men, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1932.

Major GLYN: Can the Secretary of State for War say exactly what is the position of pensioners in Ireland under the present regulations. I know what the regulations used to be, but I am not sure what is the position of the men who served in the Irish regiments now disbanded who are being maintained at the
present time at the Royal Hospital. What are the regulations which will come into force when the last of the pensioners there finish their time? Will the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, be turned over to the Free State Army?

Mr. SHAW: The position is, I think, that there has been no alteration at all, and no matter where a man lives in the British Isles he gets the same rate of pension.

Major GLYN: It is not a question of pension, but a question of the use of the Royal Hospital in Ireland. When the last pensioners resident there who were in the British Army have all gone, will the hospital be handed over to the Free State Army, and, if so, will it cease to be a charge upon this House?

Mr. SHAW: I cannot answer off-hand a hypothetical case of that kind. I think that that is a matter which must be dealt with when it arises.

CIVIL SUPERANNUATION, COMPENSATION, AND GRATUITIES.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum not exceeding £246,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Civil Superannuation, Compensation, and Additional Allowances, Gratuities, Injury Grants, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1932.

Mr. O. LEWIS: I want to call the attention of the Committee to the system of compassionate gratuities which are set up under Sub-head (d), and to how civilian employés in the Ordnance Department are affected under this arrangement. I think it will be generally agreed that, broadly speaking, one of the compensating advantages of the State as an employer, as against the private employer, is that, although the emoluments may not be so great, there is continuous employment and some consideration when employment ceases from old age, or some similar cause; in other words, usually some pension. The position with regard to these civilian employés with the Ordnance Department is that no matter how long they have been employed, and no matter how satisfactory their services may be, there is no provision for any pension in their case. They are supposed to
be covered by this system of compassionate gratuities. These are not acquired as a right. It is merely laid down that after service for a certain period they may be granted at the discretion of the authorities.
I want to show the Committee how it works and to mention a case to which I have already drawn the attention of the Secretary of State for War. This is the case of a man retired from the Ordnance Department on the ground of age on 3rd December last. I should explain to the Committee that under the paragraph of the regulations governing this matter it is stated that when retirement takes place it shall be carried out with due regard to the effect of such discharge when the employé requires only a short period of the 15 years necessary to entitle him to consideration in the matter of this gratuity. He has to complete this period of 15 years, and if, under the age limit, his service ends near that period it shall be considered whether it shall go on to qualify for the gratuity.
This man was retired on the ground of age. He was 65. He required only 10 months to complete 15 years' service—that is to say he had served for 14 years and two months. His character was in every way exemplary. His work had been excellent. He was described as a hard-working storeman whose services his commanding officer was sorry to lose. He applied to be allowed to work for another 10 months. I brought the case to the notice of the Secretary of State for War, and, in response to a question I put to him on 16th December, the right hon. Gentleman replied that this permission could not be granted. I questioned the right hon. Gentleman as to whether he had any discretion, and his reply was that this case was certainly beyond any discretion which had ever been exercised—meaning that 10 months was too long a period. It is exceedingly hard that a man who has worked for 14 years and two months and given the most complete satisfaction as a storeman should be denied the right to carry on. He could not even apply as a right for a gratuity; he could not even be considered for a compassionate gratuity. That is not a very satisfactory state of affairs.
The matter might be got over by applying this regulation a little less severely, so that in any such case a man
might get a compassionate grant after 14 years and two months or be allowed to work 10 months more. The other possibility, which is rather wider, is whether it would not be possible to devise some scheme of contributory pensions covering the case of these men. I consider the case is very hard, because, generally, the position with regard to these men is that even after 15 years they are not entitled as a right to a gratuity or pension. That compares unsatisfactorily with ordinary conditions of employment in this country. The Secretary of State for War should endeavour to see that the regulations are administered in a less hard and fast manner, or he should came forward, at some later stage, with some better proposals for either a gratuity or pension.

Major GLYN: I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £10.
There is in my constituency a large number of unestablished employés at the Royal Army Ordnance and the Didcot military depôt, and this question of gratuities has been a standing disgrace. The Act under which these compassionate grants are made was passed in 1807. The situation has completely changed. The Government now make use of civilians at not excessively high rates of pay, and, when they finish, they have no pension. They are turned adrift without any consideration, except under very exceptional circumstances. I have had several cases brought to my notice where officers responsible are particularly anxious to see that men get a fair chance. Something should also be done by the Government about the housing question. If the Government gets the advantage of a factory in a rural district at low rates something should be done about housing. Some men have to bicycle 10 or 15 miles to their work. We want to have economy, but under this Vote there is an actual reduction of what can be paid. In 1930 it was £21,500. This year it is £21,100, a decrease of £400. At a moment when men find it difficult to get employment on leaving Government service it is not opportune to cut down this Vote.

The CHAIRMAN: It is unusual to move a reduction of such a small sum on such a large Vote.

Major GLYN: I do not want to move a reduction if it is to take away still further
from the advantage of these men, but I want to call attention to their case.

Mr. SANDERS: I just want to say that, in addition to the advantages of State employment which have been referred to, there is also the advantage that the men are not paid lower wages than outside.

Major GLYN: They do not get the same privileges as they do at Woolwich.

Mr. SANDERS: They may not get all of the privileges, but they are paid trade union rates. If they can demonstrate that they are not, they have a legitimate claim to ask for them. I know very well that it has exercised the attention of Governments for a long time, whether men who are engaged without any definite agreement and can be discharged at any time should be put on a permanent and pensionable basis. I know the late Government went into it. We found that the proposals put forward were not capable of being worked on a proper actuarial basis, but we are hoping that as a result of the recommendations of the Civil Service Commission we shall get some basis to put up to the Treasury which will give these men an opportunity of getting a pension.
With regard to this particular case, the difficulty is that there is a strict and rigid rule that men must retire from the Civil Service at 65. The question is whether this man, instead of retiring at 65, should not have his service extended by 10 months in order to give him 15 years' service and allow him to receive a compassionate gratuity. But there is a strict and rigid rule that we cannot extend the service beyond that period.

Mr. O. LEWIS: Might I call the hon. Gentleman's attention to paragraph 243A of the regulations, which permits extension for a short period?

Mr. SANDERS: It does not always means 65 years of age. A man may be discharged as over age under 65. There are many in the War Office discharged at 60. We sometimes give them a period over that in order that they may get an increased pension, but, when it comes to 65, the regulations are extremely rigid. I will inquire into the question of the extension of service over 65, but
it is only fair to assume that men cannot be extended beyond that age. We have continuous complaints from people below that age that extension of service prevents promotion. We have to work on a balance of advantage and disadvantage. I admit that that does bring about cases of hardship, but, as far as the Secretary of State and myself are concerned, we have tried to deal with these cases as generously as we possibly can, and there has only been one or two hard cases such as that which has been mentioned.

Mr. O. LEWIS: The Financial Secretary says that a man has to retire at 65, but the regulations do not say so. There is nothing to prevent a man working on for three or five months.

Mr. SANDERS: I am not so sure about that, but I will see if that is the case. I do not recollect a case of permitting a man to work beyond 65. At 61 or 62 yes, but not beyond 65.

Major GLYN: May I say that that is not an answer to the point which I made. It seems to me that, until the matter is satisfactorily settled, it would be better to keep the amount of the Estimate as it was for 1930 instead of reducing it by £400. Could not the hon. Gentleman agree to that?

Mr. SANDERS: I do not know that I could promise to have the amount
raised. The amount is only £400 lower and with the small reduction of about 200 men at Woolwich that makes it possible to do as much good work as with the slightly larger sum of last year.

Major GLYN: As I understand that this matter is to be gone into either on a superannuation or some other basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Mr. SHAW: I do not think the hon. Gentleman is entitled to say that. There was no promise at all of that kind. We are always willing to look into cases to try to improve matters, but it must not be taken that we have given a promise that we never have given.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow: Committee to sit again To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Tuesday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Six Minutes before One o'clock.